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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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FLORIDA  FANCIES 


BY 


F.    R.    SWIFT 


WITH  DRAWINGS  BY 


ALBERT  E.  SMITH 


4^ 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

Zbc  finiclterbocf^ec  press 
1903 


Copyright,  1903 

BV 

FREDERICK  R.  SWIFT 


Published,  April,  1903 


Ube  ftnicdecbocbec  pteee.  View  ]t?otli 


I     ^  I  to 


6sn| 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING   PAGE 


>• 


aa 

3 


S 


i 


A  "Snap  Shot"  at  a  Sleepy  'Gator 

Frontispiece 

"Cracker"  Cabins      .... 

A  Trapper's  Camp  on  the  St.  John's 

A  Florida  Swamp 

Looking  at  his  Teeth 

In  Camp  on  the  Ocklawaha 

Trapper  Davis's  Prize 

His  Last  Sleep    . 

Trouble  Ahead  . 

Pete's  Six-footer 

A  Florida  Cemetery  . 


12 

i8 
24 
36 
42 
64 
70 
76 
84 
92 


460015 


OWN  the  little  watery  lane  out  into  the 
big  sea  road  the  Clyde  liner  crept. 
Then  the  puffing,  snorting,  spunky 
tug  let  go  and  spurted  away.  She 
looked  like  a  little  toy  boat,  and  when 
she  blew  a  good-by  salute  the  "Clyder" 
responded  with  a  scornful  dignity  and 
a  basement  basso  which  put  to  sleep  all 
other  noises. 
It  was  a  crisp,  clear,  cold  November  after- 
noon; an  ideal  day.  Yet,  as  we  rounded  the 
Battery  and  I  looked  back  at  fast-fading  and 
fair  New  York,  I  could  hardly  repress  a  sigh  of 
regret. 

Then  we  squared  away  into  the  lower  bay, 
out  to  the  wide  wide  sea,  and  for  half  a  year  I 


Florida  Fancies 


turned  my  back  upon  the  pleasures  and  the 
pains  of  life  in  old  New  York. 

It  was  rather  early  for  the  Southern  season, 
and  the  passengers  were  few.  The  only  one  I 
got  well  acquainted  with  was  a  Vermonter.  He 
reminded  me  very  strongly  of  the  leading 
character  in  A  Trip  to  Chinatown.  He  had  — 
or  he  said  he  had,  anyway — a  case  of  "  trot- 
ting" consumption.  •  I  supposed  he  meant 
' '  galloping, ' '  and  argued  the  question  with  him, 
but  he  would  n't  have  it.  He  said  he  was  a 
horseman,  and  would  n't  have  a  galloping  dis- 
ease any  more  than  he  'd  have  a  galloping 
horse. 

He  was  the  most  methodical  man  regard- 
ing that  disease  I  ever   saw.       He   had   been 

ordered  South  for 
his  health,  and  he 
kept  a  regular  ac- 
count of  what  the 
doctor  told  him  to 
do.  That  doctor  ev- 
idently believed  he 
had  all  the  patent- 
medicine  diseases 
in  the  world  as  well 
as  consumption.  It 
was  evident  to  me 
that    a    very   large 


Florida  Fancies  3 

dose  of  Keeley  cure  would  be  the  best  thing 
on  earth  for  that  physician. 

The  Vermonter,  whose  name  was  Morgan, 
had  made  about  twenty  calls  on  the  doctor  and 
at  each  call  a  new  disease  had  been  discovered. 
Talk  about  Columbus !  At  the  twentieth  visit 
it  was  decided  that  consumption  was  the  trouble. 
Then  Mr.  Morgan,  who  seemed  to  be  an  easy- 
going sort  of  individual,  was  started  South. 

Directions  and  prescriptions  for  the  other 
nineteen  diseases  were  brought  along,  too,  and 
it  kept  that  man  busy  keeping  books  so  as  not 
to  miss  any  of  his  appointments  with  them. 
When  he  slept  I  know  not,  because  I  know 
the  dyspepsia  medicine  was  taken  every  half- 
hour.  Then  there  was  a  kidney  disease  which 
kept  him  pouring  stuff  every  twenty  minutes. 
He  asked  me  to  look  him  over,  and  I  told 
him  I  thought  he  had  castoria,  but  as  there 
was  nothing  for  it  on  board  he  did  n't  add  it 
to  his  collection. 

Poor  Morgan !  I  saw  him  later  in  a  recum- 
bent position  in  a  low-down  undertaker's  shop 
in  Jacksonville.  The  undertaker  feelingly  re- 
ferred to  him  as  "his  job."  "That  's  always 
the  trouble,"  he  said;  "these  fellows  wait  till 
they  are  almost  dead  with  consumption  and 
then  they  come  down  here  expecting  us  to 
make  brick  houses  out  of  them  in  a  few  weeks. 


4  Florida  Fancies 

The  climate  did  n't  help  him.  He  kept  falling 
lower  and  lower  and  finally  fell  down  an  ele- 
vator shaft  and  punctured  his  skull.  And  you 
people  up  North  will  lay  it  to  the  climate." 

The  first  stop  was  at  Charleston.  Of  all  the 
"morgued  "  towns  in  Uncle  Sam's  domain  this 
one  takes  the  highest  medal.  Its  sidewalks  are 
bad  and  its  streets  are  awful,  though  it  's  a  city 
of  sixty  thousand  people.  Ask  a  man  the  right 
time  and  he  '11  interrogate  you  as  to  whether 
you  want  slow  time,  fast  time,  railroad,  or 
steamboat  time.  That  's  what  they  asked  me, 
and  I  told  my  informant  that  I  'd  scrub  along 
without  any  of  them.  Charleston  has  n't  got 
over  the  war  and  the  earthquakes  yet.  And, 
by  the  way  the  people  talk,  they  never  will. 
They  sit  there  with  folded  hands  waiting  for 
either  another  war  or  another  earthquake ;  and 
I  think  if  one  or  the  other  would  come  it  would 
do  them  good.  Then  they  'd  all  move  away 
and  the  town  would  wake  up  a  little. 

But  at  the  present  it  's  the  most  dilapidated 
kind  of  a  town  you  or  I  ever  struck.  They 
have  patched  up  their  old  houses  with  mortar 
and  tried  to  make  them  look  pleasant ;  but 
they  are  the  most  melancholy  kind  of  patches 
you  ever  saw.  Mortar  and  melancholy  never 
did  look  well  together  anyway. 

Just  imagine  any  town  in  the  North  with  a 


Florida  Fancies 


sign  out  like  this  in  front  of  one  of  its  largest 
dry  goods  stores : 


Another  sign  pleased  me.     It  was  hanging 
in  a  restaurant  window.     This  is  it : 


BREAKFyi^5  READY 


U^ 


COfE  IN.     g 

6//f 


The  only  man  in  Charleston  who  seemed  to 
have  any  life  was  the  purser  of  our  boat,  and 
he  made  a  bee-line  run  for  a  telegraph  office  as 
soon  as  we  struck  the  dock.  But  he  was  pe- 
culiarly situated.  The  fact  is  his  wife  was  sick. 
At  noon  the  day  we  left  New  York  she  had 
given  birth  to  a  baby  boy;  at  two  o'clock  she 
had  given  birth  to  a  baby  girl.  The  returns 
were  not  all  in,  the  doctor  thought,  but  the 
purser  had  to  skip  for  his  boat,  as  it   left  at 


6  Florida  Fancies 

three,  and  he  was  in  a  brown  study  until  we  got 
to  Charleston.  He  looked  sad  when  I  met  him 
coming  back  from  the  telegraph  office,  so  I 
guess  it  was  triplets. 


):^m^m 


-^ 


CHAPTER   II 

WHEN  I  got  to  Jack- 
sonville my  yacht 
captain  was  sitting  on  the  dock 
sunning  himself  and  dreamily  chew- 
ing a  mixed  "cud"  of  reflection  and 
tobacco.  The  Lela  Bell,  a  thirty-five  foot 
naphtha  launch,  lay  floating  on  the  water  like 
a  duck  at  high  tide.  She  had  been  primed 
and  prinked  till  she  shone  like  a  bevelled-edge 
French  plate  mirror. 

7 


8 


Florida  Fancies 


She  is  the  only  type  of  boat  I  could  possibly 
have  used  on  a  Florida  expedition.  For  years 
I  had  been  aching  to  see  what  the  country  was 
like  away  from  civilization.  I  wanted  to  do  the 
St.  John's  River  clear  down  to  the  Okechobee 
swamp  if  possible,  hundreds  of  miles  from 
where  it  is  naturally  navigable. 

I  wanted  to  find  out  the  truth  of  some  of  the 

big  alligator,  bear,  and  deer  stories.     Then  I 

wanted,  incidentally,  to  get  material  and  game 

so  that  I  could  come  back  and  tell  bigger  ones. 

Then  I  surmised  that  on  the 

upper  Ocklawaha  River, 

which    is    not    navigable   to 

ordinary  boats,  considerable 

sport  might  be  had. 

,  All  that  day  we  were  busy 

ij^  "-^^ 'y',      ,       loading   up.     There    was  at 

least   a  ton  of  groceries  and 

canned    goods,    a   thousand 

rounds    of    all    kinds    of 

/^■i\    ammunition,    a   lot    of 

genuine     pills,     and 

also  a  lot  of  wet 

stuff  to  go  with 

them.      Then 

we     put      eighty 

gallons    of    naphtha 

in  her  tank  and    fifty 


Florida  Fancies  9 

more  in  boxes  in  the  rowboat  we  towed,  and 
away  we  went  the  next  morning  for  Palatka, 
seventy-five  miles  away. 

And  now  as  to  the  crew.  There  's  the  cap- 
tain, a  funny  mixture  of  a  Pennsylvania  Dutch- 
man and  a  New  England  Yank,  red-headed  and 
full  of  fire,  but  good-natured  all  the  time. 

But  oh,  the  cook !  Shall  I  forget  her?  Never ! 
And  echo  answers  just  the  same.  Delmonico 
never  did  better  than  this  "fair,  fat,  and  forty  " 
widow.  Perhaps  it  was  that  only  sauce  in  the 
world — hunger;  perhaps  it  was  the  climate; 
most  "perhapsly  "  it  was  the  cooking,  but  I 
gained  twenty  pounds  in  a  week.  And  the 
captain  gained  more,  for  the  cook  weighs  good 
180,  and  he  's  going  to  marry  her.  And  I  'm 
sorry  I  did  n't  ask  her  myself. 

How  in  the  world  she  ever  got  up  those 
dainty  and  delicious  dishes  'way  out  there 
in  the  wilds  is  a  mystery  to  me.  I  got  her 
in  Jacksonville  at  an  intelligence  ofifice.  She 
seemed  to  take  a  fancy  to  me  at  once.  She  said 
I  was  the  living  picture  of  her  husband,  who  had 
been  dead  five  years.  I  kindly  and  gently  told 
her  that  I  was  not  in  the  living-picture  busi- 
ness as  a  regular  thing,  but  if  it  afforded  her 
any  satisfaction  to  think  so  I  would  let  her. 

I  told  her  what  was  wanted  of  her  and 
she  seemed  to  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 


lo  Florida  Fancies 

She  would  accept  me  as  an  em- 
ployer, she  said.  "I  've  lots  of 
references,  sur,  in  me  trunk,  and 
shure  they  are  from  the  best  of 
families. "  I  thought  that  rather 
funny,  as  I  had  never  engaged 
servants  before,  but  told  her  to 
keep  them  there — that  I  guessed 
there  would  be  no  policeman  on 
our  beat,  and  rather  surmised  that 
she  would  behave  herself. 

And  she  was  a  treasure,  I  shall 
never  forget  her  or  her  costume. 
I  have  the  fortune,  or  misfortune, 
whichever  you  call  it,  to  be  a 
yachtsman.  I  also  have  a  friend 
named  —  well,  never  mind,  but 
''^  we  '11  call  him  "Billy."  He  's 
a  Wall  Street  broker,  and  lately  dropped  from 
the  great  army  of  bachelors  and  joined  the 
benedicts.  His  wife  is  one  of  those  ultra- 
marine, aesthetic  type  of  girls,  speaks  five  lan- 
guages with  fluency,  and  rides  a  bicycle  with 
ease.  Now,  if  there  is  anything  "Billy"  de- 
tests it  is  a  Jenness-Miller  kind  of  costume,  and 
his  wife  rather  affects  it.  I  invited  them  on  the 
yacht  last  year  shortly  after  their  return  from 
the  bridal  tour.  I  was  looking  for  a  fight  the 
minute  Mrs.  "Billy,"  we'll  call  her,  stepped 


Florida  Fancies 


II 


on  board.     Well,  to  cut  it  short,  "Billy  "  won, 

and  someway  a  certain  bloomer  costume  was 

left  behind    and    it  got   mixed 

with  my  Southern  traps.    Then 

the    cook    found    it,  and    she 

thought    it    was    built    for   her 

and  appropriated  it.     But  that 

was  n't  the  worst  of   it.     She 

ran  into  a  pair  of  my  hunting 

leggings  and  thinking  they  were 

a  part  of  the  costume  strapped 

them    on.     You    can    imagine 

how  a  "fair,   fat,   and   forty" 

Irish  widow  would  look. 

Then  there  was  the  cabin- 
boy.  We  called  him  a  cabin- 
boy.  I  don't  know  where  it 
came  in,  but  he  gloried  in  the 
title,  and  I  let  him  have  it,  though  I  could  n't 
find  the  cabin.  The  Lcla  Bell  has  a  naphtha 
engine  in  her  capable  of  pushing  her  ten  miles 
an  hour.  She  only  draws  about  two  feet 
and  is  as  comfortable  a  boat  as  one  could 
wish.  At  night  the  cabin-boy  gets  his  fine 
work  in,  and  with  thick  portieres  makes  three 
compartments  out  of  the  boat  for  sleeping 
purposes. 

The   boy  was    a    thorough   "Cracker,"    and 
proud  of  the  name.     A  white-livered,   chalky 


12 


Florida  Fancies 


specimen  of  the  genus  homo,  slow  of  speech 
and  slow  of  action.  "Cracker  "  is  a  term  for  a 
born  and  bred  Floridian.  They  all  look  as  if 
they  had  a  lead-pipe  mortgage  on  a  life  endow- 
ment of  malaria.  Pale-faced  and  sickly  look- 
ing, they  are  not  in  any  respects  pleasing,  and 
are  continually  having  the  "shakes."  I  told 
one  man  I  thought  it  was  wrong  for  him  to  be 
"shaking"  so  much,  as  it  injured,  in  my  opin- 
ion, the  morals  of  the  community. 

He  said  he  did  n't 
know ;  he  'd  never  had  a 
drink  out  of  it  yet  and 
he  'd  been  shaking  all  his 
life. 

Then  he  shook  some 
more. 

And  I  broke  a  record 
for  him. 

It  is  no  doubt  the  fault 
of  the  country.  Most  of 
the  people  live  back  from 
civilization,  away  in  the 
swamps,  where  the  ma- 
laria must  be  something 
terrible  when  one  lives 
there  the  year  round.  I 
have  never  seen  a  genu- 
ine  "Cracker"   yet    but 


.«9i 

„  jmH 

/ 

_^TB 

Florida  Fancies 


13 


what  had  the  same  dead-white  color,  and  I 
have  seen  him  with  children  ranging  from  one 
to  fifteen  years  old  and  they  all  looked  the 
same.  A  scientific  man  I  met  once  claimed 
that  in  the  case  of  the  children  it  was  caused 
by  their  appetite  for  the  fine  sand  of  the  coun- 
try, he  insisting  that  they  ate  it. 


^J-x 


.^-T, 


CHAPTER   III 


Don't  know  the  place, 
Forgotten  the  date. 

COULD  I  but  word-paint  you  the  picture 
before  me  I  should  feel  sure  of  my 
career.  But  it  's  impossible ;  no  painter  could 
produce  upon  canvas  the  beauty  of  a  dying  day 
in  tropical  Florida.  I  think  it  must  be  either 
Christmas  Eve  or  Christmas  Day.  I  've  been 
away  from  railroads,  from  post-ofifices,  and  from 
14 


Florida  Fancies  15 

all  civilization  for  three  weeks.  You,  up  in  the 
frozen  North,  with  evidence  of  culture  and  a 
plenty  of  people,  railroads,  and  steamboats  on 
every  hand,  can  hardly  realize  that  I  've  not 
seen  a  living  soul  outside  of  my  crew  for  twenty- 
one  days.  It 's  fifty  miles  to  the  nearest  settle- 
ment across  country,  and  we  are  only  three 
hundred  miles  south  of  Jacksonville,  but  one 
hundred  miles  from  Sanford,  the  nearest  post- 
office  on  the  river. 

To  the  east,  west,  north,  and  south  a  watery 
prairie.  Dotted  here  and  there  by  straight, 
stiff  rows  of  palmettos,  by  bunches  of  cabbage 
palms,  and  by  oases  of  weeds,  it  presents  a 
sight  worth  many  a  day's  journey.  Miles  on 
miles  of  water  everywhere.  The  setting  sun 
shines  down  upon  one  vast  lake. 

We  are  tied  up  for  the  night  to  a  big  bunch 
of  prairie  grass.  The  music  of  a  Florida  even- 
ing is  beginning.  The  shrill  call  of  the  coot, 
the  scream  of  the  blue  heron,  and  the  trolley 
trill  of  the  raft  duck  are  commingled.  Then 
from  a  distance  comes  the  evening  and  hoarse 
cry  of  the  alligator  and  the  weird  whispers  of 
the  hoot-owl. 

Calm  and  still  as  a  summer  night  is  this  in- 
land lake;  a  Christmas  quiet  and  a  Christmas 
peace  reign.  The  red  sun  glistens  down  upon 
the  waters,  bespeaking  another  beauteous  day. 


i6 


Florida  Fancies 


For  five  weeks  it  has  been  that  way : 
a  beautiful  sunrise,  a  beautiful  sunset, 
and  a  beautiful  sun  day.     Not  a  suspi- 
cion of  a  cloud 
of   rain  in  thirty-five 


or  a  sign 

days 

of 

thirty-five  has  been  a 

Northern  June  day. 

the  thermometer  reaching  to 

ward  the  eighties  every  day  and  a  couple 

of  blankets  necessary  every  night,  what 

more  could  one  desire  for  a  midwinter 

night's  dream  ! 

When  they  told  me  that  it  would  be  a ''mighty 
hard  job"  to  get  below  Sanford  on  the  St.  John's 
River  they  told  me  the  truth,  and  it  's  the  first 
time  I  've  been  told  the  truth  in  five  winters  in 
Florida.  I  had  charts  galore,  compasses  in  plen- 
ty, and  information  more  than  I  wanted.  There 
was  water,  they  thought,  but  it  would  be  hard 
to  keep  in  the  channel,  which  is  only  twenty 
feet  wide.  But  they  did  n't  tell  enough.  The 
fact  is  that  the  St.  John's  River  was  very  high, 
having  risen  over  seven  feet  in  a  week.  Florida 
is  flat  land,  with  hardly  a  hill  in  all  the  State 
bigger  than  a  New  England  schoolhouse.  Con- 
sequently, the  seven  feet  of  water  had  to  go 
somewhere  and  it  has  just  overflowed  the  prairie. 


Florida  Fancies 


17 


Whereas,  formerly,  you  only  had  to  follow 
the  channel,  now  you  have  to  pick  it  out  of  a 
continual  inland  lake,  miles  and  miles  in  width. 
That 's  fun,  is  n't  it? 

That  accounts  for  the  fact  that  we  are  lost 
to-night,  and  compasses,  charts,  and  informa- 
tion don't  help  us  an  inch. 

It  took  us  two  days  to  get  out  of  the  place, 
which  I  opine  to  be  Puzzle  Lake  on  the  chart, 
fifty  miles  below  Sanford. 
And  it 's  rightly  named. 
We  finally  got  down  as  far  as  it  was  possible 
to  go,  and  we  ran  on  the  way  back  with  a  three- 
mile-an-hour  current,  which  is,  as  the 
captain  puts  it,  "dead  easy."    I  have  one 
^  red  mark  in  this  world,  any- 

way, and  that  is  that  I  have 
car      J^^-g^  ried    my    private  yachting  signal 
^^     and  the  New  Haven  Club  flag 
farther     '^^^^  south  onthe  St.  John's 
River  than       ^^^^  anyyachtsman  or  sports- 
man has  ever  ^  ,^  ^^?     been.       What 


that  honor  amounts 

know.     Guess  it  won't 

any  medals.     It  took  patien 

severance,    and 

push  to  get  that 

far.      Every  day 

was    a    day    of 


to,  I  don't 

bring  me 

ce,  per- 


i8 


Florida  Fancies 


fighting  forward.  Day  after  day  we  had  to  cut 
our  way  through  pond-lilies  and  weeds  as  tough 
as  a  rope. 

Many  a  day  we  made  less  than  eight  miles. 
Such  work  tells  on  an  engine,  and  if  that  broke 
down  it  meant  weeks  before  we  could  get  back 
to  civilization. 

It  's  a  lazy   kind    of   life  we  lead.     We  go 


'fv'." 


to  bed  with  the  sun,  or  at  the  latest  by  six 
o'clock,  and  sleep  soundly  until  6  A.M.  You 
see  there  's  no  opera  houses,  no  concerts, — in 
fact  nowhere  to  go.  For  days  sometimes  we 
could  n't  get  off  the  boat  going  through  the 
swampy  country,  as  there  would  be  four  feet 
of  water  even  in  the  forests.  Game  down  here 
is  plenty;  but  you  've  got  to  get  out  in  the 
wilds  and  know  where  to  go  for  it.     As  for  us. 


Florida  Fancies 


19 


we  have  n't  moved  or  turned  aside  for  it, 
except  in  the  case  of  deer.  We  have  shot 
all  we  wanted,  and  more  too,  without 
leaving  the  boat,  and  going  along  at  full 
speed. 

And  I  '11  just  say  this  to  a  few  sports- 
men who  think  they  can  hit  anything  they 
see:  Just  give  this  kind  of  sport  a  chance 
and  see  where  your  hand  is.  It  's  harder 
than  you  know.  Your  bird  is  flying,  and 
with  a  boat  going  ten  miles  an  hour  you  've 
got  to  be  a  quick  judge  of  allowance  and  a 
rapid  shot. 

I  have  seen  ducks  so  thick  that  the  water 
ahead  would  be  black  with  them  for  two 
hundred  feet.  When  they  flew  they  would 
make  a  noise  like  the  rushing  of  a  whirl- 
wind. "Coots  "are  most  plentiful.  On 
either  Lake  Dexter,  Dead  Lake,  or  Lake 
Harney  one  can  get  at  least  fifty  in  two 


A,^::^':ft' 


30 


Florida  Fancies 


hours'  time  any  morning.  Then  come  the  raft 
duck,  a  few  mallards,  and  some  stray  canvas- 
backs. 

Snipe  and  quail  are  plentiful,  and  geese 
abound. 

But,  talking  about  game,  don't  let  the  alli- 
gator idea  get  hold  of  you.  Most  Northern 
people  who  have  never  been  South  are  pos- 
sessed of  the  idea  that  Florida  is  flooded  with 
the  brutes.  But  it  's  not.  A  few  years  ago 
when  the  alligator  bag,  alligator  satchel,  and 
alligator  purse  were  the  reigning  fad,  the  poor 
devils  were  hunted  night  and  day  for  their  skins 
and  their  teeth.  A  ' '  Cracker  ' '  hunter  thought 
nothing  of  bringing  in  forty  skins  for  a  day's 
hunt.  At  that  time  on  the  Ocklawaha  River 
one  could  readily  see  three  or  four  hundred  on 
a  day's  trip.  Now,  if  you  see  three  or  four 
you  're  lucky. 


CHAPTER   IV 


THERE  'S  a  tall,  handsome,  blond-haired- 
looking  Connecticut  individual,  the  even 
tenor  of  whose  luxurious  life  will  be  rudely 
broken  into  when  I  return.  Last  summer  when 
we  went  yachting  together  in  one  of  the  six 
trunks  and  four  bandboxes  which  accompanied 
him  he  had  a  beautiful  array  of  shoes  of  a  black, 
a  white,  and  a  dusky  brown  color  with  patent 
inside  and  outside  two-inch  rubber  soles.  They 
were  marvels  to  look  at,  and  I  admired  them 
so  much  that  he  presented  me  with  a  pair  of 
the  dusky  browns. 


22  Florida  Fancies 

Every  time  I  put  them  on  they  got  me  into 
trouble.  Those  rubber  soles  on  a  wet  deck  are 
like  so  much  sweet  oil  under  you.  The  other 
day  as  we  were  spinning  along  up  a  side  creek 
I  dropped  a  thirty-eight  calibre  rifle-ball  into  a 
big  twelve-foot  alligator  taking  a  snooze  on  the 
bank.  The  captain  ran  the  boat  in  and  I  made 
a  jump  for  the  bank,  rifle  in  hand. 

But  fate  and  those  shoes  said  otherwise. 
Those  rubber  soles  flew  under  me  in  the  soft 
mud  and  back  I  went  into  twenty  feet  of  water. 
Mr.  'Gator,  who  I  thought  was  dead,  woke  up 
lively  and  ugly. 

He  dropped  in  after  me. 

Then  I  was  in  a  pickle.  I  did  n't  want  to 
stay  down,  for  if  I  did  I  was  booked  for  a 
watery  ascension  to  the  other  world.  If  I 
ascended,  the  alligator  would  book  me.  The 
captain  did  n't  dare  shoot,  for  he  might  hit  me, 
and  then  there  would  be  trouble,  sure. 

I  finally  compromised  by  swimming  to  the 
other  side  of  the  creek,  and  the  'gator  let  me  go 
and  I  let  him  go,  which  no  doubt  was  a  wise 
move  for  both. 

It  was  almost  a  relief  when  we  turned  from 
the  big  and  broad  St.  John's  into  the  narrow 
and  sinuous  Ocklawaha  River.  Say  what  you 
will,  write  what  you  will,  telephone  what  you 
can,  there  's  no  river  in  Europe  that  equals 


Florida  Fancies 


23 


that  river  for  scenery.  It  's  a  letter  S  all  the 
way  from  the  start  to  the  finish  of  its  175 
miles.  I  can  testify  to  the  fact  that  it  has 
ninety-nine  curves  to  every  niile.^^^^        \/- 

It  is  so  crooked  that 
it    reminds     me     of 
what  comedian  Mark 
Murphy  once  said  of 
Boston  streets.  ' '  Be 
j  a  b  e  r  s  , "    he  ex- 
claimed, "I  started 
out   one    morning 
to  see  a  friend  and 
the  turns  were  so 
sudden  that  I  met 
m  e  s  e  1  f     coming 
back !  " 

The  tall  trees 
are     draped      with 
southern  moss,  and 
as   the    sun    comes 
peering    through, 
shedding    its     rays 
upon  the  weird  scene  you  can  ^^^^^ 

only  liken  it  to  Stanley's  description  of  an 
African  forest.  It  is  a  muddy,  turbid  stream 
averaging  about  thirty  feet  in  width.  On  the 
guide  card  describing  it  I  think  there  are  about 
sixty-seven  stations;  but  don't  get  fooled,  be- 


24 


Florida  Fancies 


cause  there  are  only  about  four  places  on  the 
entire  river  that  you  could  possibly  land  at. 
The  rest  of  the  way  is  one  continual  swamp. 
Tall  cypress  trees  covered  with  Spanish  moss, 
mistletoe,  and  Florida  morning-glories  line  both 
banks.  It  finds  its  source  in  some  little  lake 
near  Leesburg,  but  it  is  not  navigable  for 
seventy-five  miles  of  its  course  except  by  some 
tourist  like  myself.  Navigation  starts  in  on 
Silver  Springs  Run,  at  the 
famous  sulphur  springs.  The 
water  there  from  the  spring 
runs  like  a  whirlwind  down 
for  nine  miles  to  join  the 
Ocklawaha.  It  is  from  sixty 
to  eighty  feet  deep  and  as  clear 
as  crystal.  You  can  see  the 
smallest  object  crawling  on  the 
bed  of  the  river. 

The  mystery  of  the  springs 


„ ,;  ^ 

c 

iJr- 

l^H 

f 

■If 'T  rtf"'^ 

-5ffHP^' 

^^1| 

•I'           ••  .          -         • — 

1 

Florida  Fancies 


25 


I  believe  has  never  been  fathomed.  It  is 
one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world.  The  United 
States  sent  a  commission  to  in- 
vestigate it  some  years  ago,  but 
their  report  cannot  be  accurate,  as 
a  new  spring  has  made  its  appear- 
ance since  then.  But  I  believe  their 
claim  is  that  fifteen  million  gallons 
of  water  rush  out  of  the  five 
springs  every  hour.  With  a  de- 
scent of  sixty  feet  in  the  first  nine 
miles,  you  can  readily  see  what  a 
rushing,  whirling,  eddying  tor- 
rent it  is. 

One  of  the  most 
unique    bachelors' 
establishments      - 
i  n    t  h  e 
world  is    A  A'; 
at    the%    ^'"' 


oddest 
one  I  ever 
saw.     Cap- 
tain Gibbons  is  its 
owner,  and  I  guess  he 


26 


Florida  Fancies 


owns  everything  worth  having  around  the 
springs.  The  land  on  both  sides  of  the  docks 
and  wharves  is  his,  so  you  see  he  has  a  lead- 
pipe  cinch  on  the  water. 

Tall,  broad-shouldered,  stout  of  frame  and 
stout  of  heart,  he  is  the  perfect  type  of  a  South- 
ern gentleman.  His  "ranch," 
as  he  terms  it,  is  a  two-story 
house  built  over  the  water.  Many 
a  time,  when  his  colored  cook 
has  n't  appeased  my  hunger  for 
fish,  I  've  lifted  a  trap-door, 
thrown  out  a  line,  and  caught 
more  while  the  frying-pan  was 
warming;  and  this  without 
moving  from  my  chair.  There  's 
no  bath-tub  necessary  there. 
Simply  another  trap-door,  three 
steps  down,  and  you  can  have  a 
bath  in  the  clearest,  cleanest 
water  in  the  world.  No  matter 
what  the  air  temperature  is,  the 
water  temperature  never  varies. 
As  we  rounded  the 

, — -.      last  curve  in  sight 

^^>^   of  the  Captain's, 

there   was  a 

sound  of  ar- 

\jj^  tillery.     The 


Florida  Fancies 


27 


Captain  had  gathered  all  Silver  Springs'  popu- 
lation there,  armed  them  with  shotguns,  and 
they  were  saluting  us.  I  should  n't  have  been 
a  bit  surprised  if  he  'd  had  a  few  brass  bands 
around. 

But  the  afternoon  brought  bad  luck.  The 
Captain  had  been  looking  forward  to  my  visit 
for  some  time.  Men  had  been  sent  out  hunt- 
ing for  the  trail  of  the  deer  and  the  roost  of  the 
wild  turkey.  Orders  had  been  issued  to  all  the 
population  to  keep  their  shotguns  home  and 
let  the  birds  alone  till  after  my  visit.  Then  we 
were  going  to  put  the  launch  on  wheels  and  cart 
her  across  country  to  Gulf  Ham- 
mock, which  is,  as  the  Captain 
puts  it,  "God's  own  hunting- 
ground." 

But  my  horse  Jack  changed 
the    plans.      A    chunky    sorrel 
devil   of    a    broncho, 
trained  for  hunt- 
ing,   he  never 
turns    a    hair 
when  you  fire 
over  him  and 
will    follow 
the      dogs 
through    the 
thickest 


28 


Florida  Fancies 


woods  ever  known.  I  call  him  mine  because 
I  always  use  him  when  there.  The  Captain 
had  saved  him  up  for  three  weeks  for  me.  He 
had  been  fed  on  the  fat  of  the  land  and  no 
man  had  thrown  a  leg  over  him  in  that  time. 
Naturally,  he  was  feeling  very  frisky,  and 
when  the  Captain  mounted  him  to  show  him 
off  to  me  he  threw  him,  badly  bruising  the 
Captain  and  shattering  his  jaw. 


CHAPTER  V 

I  KNOW  I  '11  never  forget  the 
ride  I  had  that- night  on  Jack. 
The  Captain  lay  on  the  ground 
unconscious  for  ten  minutes  be- 
fore we  could  bring  him  to.  The 
left  side  of  his  jaw  was  swelled 
fully  two  inches,  and  he  seemed 
to  be  in  great  pain.  I  knew  the 
best  thing  for  him  was  a  doctor, 
and  as  the  nearest  one  was  at 
Ocala,  six  miles  away,  I  told  them 
to  saddle  my  favorite  and  I  would 
go.  But  Brown,  the  Captain's 
valet  and  bodyguard,  absolutely 
refused  to  allow  any  of  the  colored 
crackers  to  saddle  him. 

Massa, ' '  he  said,  ' ' youse  know 
better ;  that  devil  has  got  a  wicked 
streak  on,  and  he  '11  kill  you  same 
as  he  has  Mars  Gibbons." 


29 


30  Florida  Fancies 

Now,  as  far  as  riding  an  equine,  the  Captain 
was  my  beau-ideal  of  a  horseman.  He  sat  his 
horse,  saddle  or  no  saddle,  and  he  was  flesh  of 
his  flesh  and  bone  of  his  bone.  He  had  been 
a  Confederate  cavalry  captain  in  the  war  and 
many  said  in  the  four  years  he  had  grown  to 
his  horse  and  slept  and  eaten  in  the  saddle. 
He  never  bothered  with  the  reins,  but  always 
guided  his  horse  with  his  knees  and  voice. 

And  as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  my  life  had 
been  too  busy  a  one  to  learn  horsemanship. 
Put  me  on  a  dress-parade  horse  or  start  me  out 
on  a  sachet-bag  hunt,  and  I  should  be  a  sorry 
spectacle  for  any  kind  of  foreign  gods.  But 
get  me  out  in  the  wilds  with  Jack  and  he 
could  n't  throw  me,  no  matter  how  wicked  he 
was  feeling;  and  that  is  a  pretty  good  test 
with  a  wild  Western  stallion  under  you. 

And  so,  with  blood  up  and  the  confidence  of 
a  fairly  young  youth,  I  saddled  him  myself  and 
with  a  jump  was  on  his  back.  Before  the 
darkies  had  opened  the  gate  Jack  had  made  a 
running  jump  and  cleared  the  fence.  Talk 
about  Sheridan's  ride!  For  the  first  mile  that 
broncho  kept  me  guessing  and  holding  on. 
He  tried  his  old  trick  of  bending  his  knees  and 
stopping  suddenly,  but  it  did  n't  work.  The 
ride  was  through  pine  woods  and  what  I  ex- 
pected I  got  in  the  first  mile.     Jack  simply  ran 


Florida  Fancies  31 

me  into  a  tree  and  tried  to  sweep  me  off  by- 
brushing  against  the  trunk ;  but  it  was  another 
old  trick  of  his  and  I  was  ready  for  him.  I 
just  leaned  over  as  he  struck  that  tree  and  hit 
him  one  crack  with  the  butt  end  of  a  loaded 
whip. 

That  seemed  to  be  proof  positive  to  him  that 
I  was  not  an  "easy"  boss  and  without  more 
ado  he  landed  me  in  Ocala  inside  of  fifteen 
minutes. 

The  doctor  said  it  would  be  weeks  before  the 
Captain  would  be  around  again,  and  so,  after  a 
week  of  nursing  and  hunting  around  Silver 
Springs,  I  decided  to  take  a  run  on  the  upper 
Ocklawaha  in  an  attempt  to  get  to  Leesburg 
through  a  chain  of  lakes. 

But  I  had  one  little  adventure  before  I  left 
which  came  near  placing  me  where  I  should 
have  had  to  dictate  this  story  to  a  silver-winged 
type-writer  in  the  other  world.  Cap.  Jr.,  a 
chip  of  the  old  block,  proposed  that  we  go  out 
"jacking"  some  night.  Up  in  Maine  we  go 
"jacking  "  for  deer,  but  this  was  to  be  a  case 
of  spearing  for  fish  and  one  particular  alligator. 
Now  this  particular  one  was  a  tradition.  I 
always  scouted  traditions,  and  as  I  did  n't  want 
to  break  my  rule  this  time  I  went  scouting  after 
this  one. 

There  was  a  certain  spot  about  three  miles 


32 


Florida  Fancies 


down  the  run  where  this  alligator  loafed  by  day 
and  by  night.  In  age  he  was  placed  at  about  a 
hundred  and  in  size  anywhere  from  sixteen  feet 
to  thirty.  According  to  Bradstreet's  and  other 
reports,  he  had  been  shot  at  and  hit  at  least  a 
thousand  times,  but  never  bothered  to  wink 
more  than  one  eye  and  depart.  Night  after 
night  and  day  after  day  he  had 
been  hunted.  The  best  alliga- 
tor hunters  all  over  Florida  had 
spent  days  at  Silver  Springs  look- 
ing him  up,  but  that  'gator's 
apartments  were  still  furnished 
by  himself. 

Young  Cap.  had  seen  him  at 
least  ten  times,  and  as  he  was  not 
much  of  a  fisherman  I  only  cut  his 
conservative  estimate  of  twenty  feet 
in  length  in  two.     So  one 


Florida  Fancies 


33 


wire  basket  filled  with  selected  pitch-pine  sticks. 
When  fired  it  gives  a  bright  light  and  is  used  to 
dazzle  both  deer  and  alligators. 

If  perfect  quiet  is  kept,  a  deer  seeing  the 
bright  light  will  come  to  the  banks  of  the 
stream,  and  in  a  measure  it  hypnotizes  him. 
And  so  it  is  with  alligators.  You  can  let  your 
boat  drift  within  ten  feet  of  them  and  they  will 
remain    perfectly 


34  Florida  Fancies 

mile  current  we  floated.  We  had  rigged  up  a 
fishing  spear.  They  are  three-pronged  barbed 
steel  forks  imbedded  in  the  end  of  a  twelve- 
foot  pole.  The  other  end  of  the  pole  is  fastened 
to  a  rope  which  is  tied  in  a  loose  knot  around 
your  wrist. 

The  harpoonist  stands  up  at  the  bow  of  the 
boat,  and  though  it  takes  considerable  skill  we 
landed  about  twenty-one  big  fish,  mostly  pick- 
erel and  trout  ranging  from  three  to  eight 
pounds.  Then,  as  we  were  nearing  our  place, 
I  gave  up  my  fork  to  young  Cap.  and  loaded 
my  Winchester.  I  was  just  pushing  the  last 
bullet  in  when  I  heard  a  swish.  Away  went 
the  harpoon,  and  with  the  help  of  a  yell  from 
the  harpoonist  it  buried  itself  in  what  I  could 
plainly  see  was  a  monster  alligator  just  crossing 
the  stream. 

"You  fool,  you!"  I  shouted  in  my  excite- 
ment; "let  go  the  pole;  that  fellow  will  drown 
us."  But  I  was  too  late.  Mr.  'Gator  had 
tautened  on  it,  and  the  rope  knot  was  fast 
round  Cap.'s  wrist. 

"Cut  it,  cut  it!"  I  shouted.  But  by  that 
time  Cap.  had  all  he  could  do  to  hang  on  to 
the  boat.  Then  Mr.  'Gator,  who  saw  he  was 
fastened,  was  in  for  fight.  With  a  rush  he 
came  head  on  at  the  boat,  then  turned  and  hit 
it  a  vicious  blow  with  his  tail,  breaking  in  the 


Florida  Fancies  35 

side,  knocking  out  the  lighted  pine-knots,  and 
making  a  blazing  funeral  pyre  out  of  young 
Cap.,  who  was  trying  gallantly  to  rid  himself 
of  his  prize. 

Then  the  darky  oarsman  lost  his  head. 
With  a  yell  like  a  war-dancing  Comanche  he 
jumped  out  of  the  boat  and  swam  for  the 
shore.  But  he  did  the  best  thing  after  all  to 
help  us  out.  As  I  was  in  the  stern  seat  I  could 
not  shoot  for  fear  of  the  rower,  who  was  bob- 
bing around  like  a  sewing-machine  shuttle  in 
motion. 

Then  with  a  clear  field  I  just  held  that  rifle 
towards  that  tradition  and  without  aiming  let 
him  have  it.  He  was  so  near  and  so  big  that  I 
could  n't  miss  him,  and  the  shots  came  so  thick 
and  so  fast  that  they  stunned  him.  The  boat 
was  filling  with  water,  putting  out  the  fire,  and 
the  current  pushing  us  into  a  bend  in  the 
shore.  Cap.  and  I  made  one  jump  for  the  near- 
est tree  as  the  boat  sank  in  sixty  feet  of  water. 

Then  Mr.  Alligator  began  to  get  his  second 
wind.  But  by  this  time  Cap.  had  loosened 
the  knot  and  taken  a  couple  of  hitches  around 
the  tree  with  the  rope,  and  as  the  big  brute  was 
badly  wounded,  we  judged  he  was  our  meat. 

But  we  were  in  a  pickle.  A  wounded  alli- 
gator is  the  worst  thing  to  tackle  on  this  earth, 
and  as  my  rifle  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  river. 


36 


Florida  Fancies 


we  were  helpless.  It  was  two  men  up  a  tree 
sure,  but  in  an  hour  all  Silver  Springs  was  on 
the  way  down  the  run  with  any  old  watery  con- 
veyance they  could  pick  up.  The  "darkey" 
had  not  stopped  running  till  he  got  there  and 
the  entire  village  was  alarmed.     A  few  shots 


more  settled  the  alligator,  and  to-day  I  use  him 
for  a  grip.  He  measured  fourteen  feet  seven 
inches  from  nose  to  tip  of  tail,  which  is  a  mighty 
big  alligator  these  days,  no  matter  what  they 
tell  you. 

There  's  only  one  bigger  that  I  know  of  and 
he  's  way  up  in  Lake  GrifRn,  and  I  hope  to 


LOOKING  AT  HIS  TEETH 


Florida  Fancies  37 

gather  his  scalp  next  year,  as  it  will  be  my  third 
year  after  him. 

I  went  "jacking  "  once  more,  but  gave  it  up 
after  that,  as  it  disgusted  me.  It 's  well  enough 
for  pot  hunters,  but  it  strikes  me  as  a  mighty 
tame  and  cowardly  sort  of  sport.  It  was  in  a 
fourteen-mile  creek  near  Dead  Lake ;  I  had  for 
guide  and  oarsman  a  typical  J.  Fennimore 
Cooper  hunter.  I  believe  that  man  could 
scent  a  deer  a  mile  off  with  the  wind  against 
him.  He  knew  every  foot  of  forest  and  stream 
for  twenty  miles.  There  was  n't  a  spot,  wet 
or  dry,  in  that  region  that  he  could  n't  take 
you  to,  the  darkest  night.  He  knew  the  haunt 
of  the  Hooping  Crane  as  well  as  the  feeding- 
ground  of  the  finny  Goggle-eye ;  he  could  fol- 
low a  deer's  track  as  easily  as  you  and  I  could 
go  up  Broadway  in  a  cable  car. 

I  think  he  must  have  copied  his  costume 
from  a  Cooper  hero,  and  his  gun  was  old  and 
antiquated  enough  to  have  been  carried  by  one 
of  them ;  but  when  it  went  to  his  shoulder, 
aged  and  rusty  as  it  was,  something  had  to 
come. 

The  night  was  one  of  those  dark  cloudy  ones 
with  a  damp  chill  in  the  air  that  went  clean 
through  you.  As  we  went  across  the  lake  the 
mist  commenced  to  rise  like  rain,  reversing 
the  rule.     With  muffled  oars  we  crept  into  the 


460015 


38 


Florida  Fancies 


creek,  and  then  stopped  to  warm  up  with 
quinine  pills  and  the  usual  accompaniment. 
As  I  was  to  do  the  shooting,  I  adjusted  the 
latter-day  style  of  "jack,"  which  is  a  bull's- 
eye  lantern  fastened  on  your  head  by  a  broad 
leather  strap.  The  bull's  eye  must  come  in 
the  centre  of  your  forehead,  and  then  it  makes 
a  sort  of  a  semi-searchlight  out  of  you.  This 
you  manipulate  by  throwing  your 
head  from  side  to  side  flashing 
the  light  from  bank  to  bank  of 
the  creek  into 
'  the  woods. 

I  was  sitting 
inthe  bow  with 
my  rifle  over 
my  knees  fol- 
lowing the  line 
of  light.    Out- 


Florida  Fancies  39 

side  of  that  range  I  could  not  see  my  hand 
before  me,  yet  that  guide  rowed  me  at  least 
twenty  miles  that  night  though  creeks,  little 
watery  alleys,  and  small  lakes,  yet  never  made 
one  mistake. 

Silent  and  speechless  he  rowed  on  and  on. 
It  was  midnight  before  the  noiseless  dip  of  his 
oars  slackened.  Then  we  both  gazed  through 
the  darkness  at  two  glaring  balls  of  fire  low 
down  on  the  west  bank.  I  flashed  my  light  on 
them  and  taking  careful  easy  aim  pinked  that 
alligator  with  a  forty-four  right  between  the 
eyes.  There  was  a  sudden  bellow,  a  splash, 
and  a  dash  of  water  in  our  faces,  and  the  white 
under-hide  of  that  fellow  was  floating  down  the 
stream. 

It  had  been  a  clean  "kill,"  and  after  picking 
him  up  we  took  some  more  pills  and  kept  on. 

It  was  hours  after  that  before  we  had  luck 
again.  We  were  just  leaving  the  creek  for  the 
lake  on  the  campward  journey  when  a  rushing 
sound  startled  me.  I  flashed  the  light  to  the 
bank  where  the  sound  came  from  and  there, 
standing  full  in  front  of  me,  head  upraised  as 
if  defying  fate,  was  a  magnificent  buck.  I  had 
shot  deer  before,  but  never  in  so  close  a  range. 
He  could  not  have  been  over  fifteen  feet  from 
me,  and  I  could  feel  my  hand  shake  a  little  as 
I  lifted  my  gun. 


40  Florida  Fancies 

I  choked  the  feeling  down  and  sighted  for 
his  head.  There  he  stood  in  all  his  beauty ;  a 
monarch  of  a  Florida  forest.  A  feeling  of  awe 
came  over  me  in  the  stillness  of  the  night  and 
the  silence  of  the  woods ;  no  sound  except  the 
trickle  of  the  water  as  it  swished  against  the 
oar  blades.  I  could  see  the  drops  of  dew  on 
the  gun  barrel  as,  with  finger  on  the  trigger,  I 
waited.  Dazed  and  motionless,  he  seemed  to 
wait  his  death  like  a  hero  waiting  for  execution. 
Then  a  feeling  of  pity  at  murdering  so  crept 
over  me  and  I  dropped  my  gun  and  turned  to 
the  guide. 

"I  'm  blamed  if  I  '11  shoot  at  him,"  I  said; 
"bring  on  an  old  cow  alligator  and  I  '11  do  it, 
but  I  can't  kill  that  fellow." 

With  the  sound  of  my  voice  the  deer  was 
away,  and  that  's  the  last  "jack  "  hunting  I  '11 
ever  do. 


CHAPTER   VI 


IT  was  a  hot  January  day  when  the  last  salvo 
of  the  Silver  Springs  colored  contingent  was 
fired  and  the  first  bend  in  the  river  hid  us  from 
sight.     We  were  on  our  way  toward  the  un- 
travelled  and   unhunted   region  of   the  upper 
41 


42  Florida  Fancies 

Ocklawaha.  The  thermometer  had  a  high- 
water  mark  of  ninety,  and  both  the  sun  and  the 
mercury  were  bulls.  The  first  nine  miles  was 
down  the  Silver  Springs  Run  and  away  in  a 
rush  and  whirl  we  went.  With  a  pouring 
torrent  of  a  boiling  sulphur  current,  with  a  full 
head  of  steam  and  a  curve  in  the  river  every 
hundred  feet,  there  was  danger  enough  to 
please  any  man.  Then,  too,  the  big  unwieldy 
Ocklawaha  boats  were  due.  The  narrowness  of 
the  stream  would  not  allow  us  to  pass,  and  it 
was  necessary  to  turn  into  some  little  creek 
or  bay.  But  we  were  in  luck.  In  forty-five 
minutes  the  nine  miles  was  made  and  just 
as  we  rounded  Hell  Gate  Island  into  the 
upper  river  the  Lucas  line  boat  loomed  ahead, 
with  the  opposition  boat  only  twenty  feet 
behind. 

It  was  once  again  the  rivalry  of  the  Missis- 
sippi boats  in  the  old  Mark  Twain  days.  The 
two  had  been  nip  and  tuck  all  night  long. 
They  were  now  hugging  each  other  for  a  spurt 
in  the  fairly  open  water  of  the  last  mile  run. 
Then  there  would  be  fun.  The  leading  boat 
now  had  the  right  of  way  and  puffed  along 
like  a  fat  king  with  the  asthma.  The  trailer 
could  do  nothing  but  trail,  for  she  could  n't 
pass  the  leader  without  pushing  her  into  the 
woods.      The   passengers   on    the  decks  were 


Florida  Fancies 


43 


howling  and  clasping  each  other's  hands  with 
excitement. 

As  I  thought,  it  was  a  good  alligator  day. 
They  were  just  commencing  to  break  away 
from  their  long  winter  sleep  in  the  mud.  At 
noon  we  stopped  for  lunch.  It  had  been  a 
thirty-mile  run  through  cypress  woods  out  into 
an  open  meadow.  In  that  three-hour  run  we 
had  counted  twenty-six  alligators.  Either  my 
aim  was  poor  or  they  were  a  Bowery  lot,  for  I 
only  got  four. 

In  the  afternoon  for  miles  and  miles  our 
course  lay  through  this  snaky  river,  bordered 
with  tall  grass  and  ferns.  Game,  as  we  left 
civilization,  became  plentiful  and  we  had  no 
difficulty  in  bagging  a  dozen  ducks.      Hundreds 


in  a  flock  they  fiew  and  I  picked  them  off  with 
a  rifle,  sighting  the  ones  flying  directly  over  the 
stream   so   that    our  "Cracker"   cabin  "kid" 
could  gather  them  in  as  we  skipped  along. 
Innumerable   and    multi-colored    birds    flew 


44  Florida  Fancies 

screeching  away  at  the  sound  of  the  en- 
gine. 

Magnificent  specimens  of  the  blue  heron  were 
there ;  one  could  even  get  a  view  of  an  egret,  a 
rare  bird  in  Florida  now ;  then  a  pair  of  big 
hooping  cranes  streamed  away,  followed  by  a 
crew  of  saintly-white  herons.  Many  of  the 
birds  were  new  to  me,  and  I  have  in  front  of 
me  a  monkey-faced  albino  owl  I  captured  that 
day,  the  first  I  ever  saw. 

Then  that  poor  despised  bird,  the  Florida 
limpkin,  was  in  plenty.  Talk  about  your 
early-in-the-year  chicken  or  Philadelphia  squab, 
there  's  no  meat  so  delicious  as  a  properly 
cooked  limpkin.  It  's  a  water-bird  built  like 
a  small  stork,  of  a  light  brown  color.  It  's  a 
shame,  however,  to  shoot  them.  They  can't 
hear  and  don't  see  very  far,  so  they  make  des- 
picable pot  shots.  They  travel  in  pairs.  I 
shot  one  that  evening  just  as  we  landed  and 
the  piteous,  almost  human  cry  of  its  mate,  who 
hovered  around  all  night,  gave  me  the  night- 
mare. 

Our  stopping-place  was  the  first  elevation  we 
had  seen  that  day,  and  it  was  a  relief  to  get 
away  from  that  fifteen  miles  of  meadow  prairie. 
It  was  sloped  down  to  the  water  covered  with 
pine  and  cypress  trees  and  morning-glory  vines 
in  full  flower.     I  judged,  from  a  few  bones  and 


Florida  Fancies 


45 


an  old  time  Indian  cooking-pot,  that  it  was  a 
big  Indian  burial  mound. 

We  built  a  big  fire  to  keep  away  wildcats 
and  snakes,  and  slept  under  the  waving  cypress 
and  the  moaning  pine  that  night.  The  moon 
silvering  through  the  trailing  southern  moss 
cast  me  into  a  reminiscent  mood.  It  was  about 
theatre-time  on  Broadway.  What  was  the 
weather?  Probably  snowing  and  blowing  great 
guns,  while  I  lay  rolled  up  cosy  and  warm  in  a 
blanket.     Had  Jack  made  up  with  his  wife  yet? 


46  Florida  Fancies 

Was  Dick  still  smitten  on  the  Casino  ballet 
girl,  and  who  was  at  the  club?  Then  som- 
nolence overcame  reminiscence  and  silence 
reigned  but  for  the  uneducated  snore  of  the 
cook  in  the  boat  below. 

At  night  I  was  rudely  and  violently  assailed 
by  my  crew  and  awoke  dreaming  that  a  horde 
of  limpkins  in  the  guise  of  elephants  were  using 
me  as  an  asphalt  pavement.  Wild  yells  greeted 
me,  and  for  a  second  I  thought  I  was  in  the 
bottom  of  the  other  world's  sea  of  fire.  The 
southern  moss  drooping  from  the  trees  almost 
to  the  ground  had  caught  fire  and  the  woods 
were  ablaze  with  light.  From  branch  to  branch 
the  fire  leaped  like  forked  lightning  and  for 
hundreds  of  feet  in  the  air  it  looked  like  Dante's 
inferno.  My  blanket  was  ablaze  from  fiery 
moss,  and  my  hair  and  clothes  were  singeing. 
I  made  one  jump  for  the  water,  where  the  Cap- 
tain and  young  Cap.  had  preceded  me.  Then 
we  gave  the  boat  a  push  and  out  into  the  stream 
she  floated  with  the  current. 

At  longer  range  it  was  a  magnificent  spec- 
tacle, but  we  finished  the  rest  of  the  night  in 
the  boat  lower  down  the  stream. 

We  got  away  early  the  next  morning.  The 
stream  kept  "shallowing,"  and  many  a  keel 
track  we  left  in  that  mud.  The  weeds,  too, 
were  thick  and  at  noon  we  had  n't  made  over 


Florida  Fancies 


47 


five  miles.  It  was  laborious  work  as  the  boat 
had  to  be  stopped  every  ten  minutes  to  clean 
the  wheel.  We  were  about  to  tie  up  at  noon 
when  a  series  of  unearthly  whistles  shook  me 
into  the  shivers,  I  was  watching  what  I 
thought  was  a  deer  ahead  fording  the  river, 
but  I  dropped  my  gun  in  amazement. 

Again  it  sounded,  and  I  counted  five,  the 
signal  of  a  steamer  in  distress.  I  had  heard 
and  read  of  all  kinds  of  apparitions  but  never 
of  a  steamer's  ghost.  There  never  had  been  a 
steamer  through  this  narrow,  shallow  stream. 
That  was  an  impossibility.  Then  what  could 
it  be? 

I  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  cabin  house  and 
could  distinctly  see,  a  mile  away  through  p 
break  in  the  trees,  a  boat 
I  recognized  in  a  sheep' 
tail-shake.  It  was  the 
Alligator,  owned  by 
Dr.  Moore,  of  Phila- 
delphia. That  ex- 
plained everything. 
Dr.  Moore  has  a  fad. 
And  he  can't  seem  to 
get  over  it.  His  fad 
is  hunting  for  Indian  relics, 
and  he  's  chased  them  from 
coast  to  coast.    Every  winter 


48  Florida  Fancies 

for  years  I  have  met  him  in  some  out-of-the- 
way  place  on  his  digging  expeditions  in  Florida. 
And  as  long  as  he  's  alive  I  suppose  he  '11  keep 
right  on  at  the  same  old  game.  He  's  rich 
enough,  so  I  shan't  stop  him. 

As  for  myself,  I  hunted  with  him  one  day, 
but  it  was  too  monotonous.  It  struck  me  as 
being  a  very  dead  kind  of  sport.  I  felt  at  the 
end  of  the  day  as  if  I  wanted  to  stick  up  one 
of  the  Indian  skulls  and  shoot  at  an  eye-hole  to 
see  if  it  would  n't  wink  once  more.  The 
Doctor  has  published  several  large-sized  works 
nobly  illustrated  with  pictures  of  an  only  good 
Indian's  bones.  The  books  are  not  intensely 
exciting  and  the  largeness  is  in  their  size  and 
not  in  circulation. 

The  Alligator  is  a  small-sized  edition  of  an 
Ocklawaha  steamer,  about  sixty  feet  long  and 
twelve  wide.  She  was  built  expressly  for  the 
Doctor  and  only  draws  a  foot  and  a  half  of 
water,  loaded.  The  Doctor  appears  in  Florida 
about  September,  bringing  with  him  his  cook, 
his  steward,  his  engineer,  and  captain.  Then 
he  hires  his  waiters  and  other  help  in  Palatka, 
including  about  twenty  colored  gentlemen  to 
do  the  excavating. 

I  suppose  the  Doctor  is  the  best  Indian 
mound  hunter  in  the  world.  I  never  could  tell 
how  he  ever  trailed  them  as  he  was  shy  on  dogs 


Florida  Fancies  49 

and  the  two  he  did  have  seemed  to  be  poor 
mongrel  brutes,  and  no  use  for  sport.  He 
seemed  to  sniff  them  from  afar,  but  that  don't 
look  probable,  as  the  relics  had  been  passd  too 
long.  What  he  ever  did  with  his  game  was  a 
mystery  to  me.  There  was  a  photograph  fac- 
tory on  board,  but  no  tallow  dip  or  phosphate 
store.  And  I  know  he  told  me  once  that  he 
got  seven  thousand  pieces  out  of  one  mound. 

So  we  kept  on  for  another  mile  and  came 
upon  the  relic  hunter  and  his  boat  in  distress. 
The  water  had  deepened  and  the  current  was 
running  strong.  The  bow  of  the  boat  had 
lodged  up  against  one  bank,  the  current  had 
struck  the  stern,  which  married  the  other  bank, 
and  there  she  was,  stuck  fast. 

The  Lela  Bell  went  into  business  as  a  tug 
boat,  and  after  an  hour's  pulling  we  got  the 
Alligator  off.  Then,  as  we  were  both  booked 
for  the  same  way,  we  joined  hands.  For  two 
weeks  we  were  together,  and  as  the  Doctor  had 
some  friends  with  him  who  played  the  usual 
Philadelphia  game  of  poker,  I  passed  many  an 
enjoyable  evening.  We  parted  company  about 
ten  miles  from  Lake  Griffin,  as  the  Doctor 
sniffed  a  mound.  The  Lela  Bell  had  one  set- 
back. That  was  near  Leesburg.  Five  years 
before  a  railroad  had  been  built.  It  ran  over 
the  river  and  had  the  usual  drawbridge.     But 


50  Florida  Fancies 

as  no  boat  had  ever  been  through  it  in  all  those 
five  years  the  draw  was  n't  in  the  best  opening 
mood.  It  took  a  wrecking  train  and  forty 
men  to  get  it  open.  It  also  took  four  days, 
but  as  the  railroad  company  sent  down  a  special 
train  every  morning  to  take  me  anywhere  I 
wished,  I  did  n't  mind  it  much.  As  it  cost 
them  about  one  thousand  dollars,  I  don't  sup- 
pose that  corporation  thinks  much  of  exploring 
expeditions  in  general  and  damns  that  one  of 
mine  in  particular. 


IT  was  away  up  near  the 
headwaters  of  the  Ocklawaha 
that  I  met  "Dick"  Travers.  Had 
he  been  a  white-winged  angel  in 
brown  bloomers  I  could  not  have 
been  more  surprised.  To  get  into 
Lake  Eustis  I  had  to  go  through  a  rather  wide 
stream,  very  properly  named  Dead  River  be- 
cause of  its  sluggishness,  and  I  tied  up  to  a 
cypress  tree  on  its  banks  one  afternoon.  In 
the  night  there  was  trouble  around  those 
woods  somewhere  among  the  menagerie,  and 
SI 


52 


Florida  Fancies 


the  scream  o£  a  wildcat  in  particular  annoyed 
me. 

In  the  morning  I  started  out  to  hunt  his 
"catship,"  and  finally  located  him  in  a  tree.  I 
had  two  charges  of  buckshot  in  my  gun  and 
the  bulk  of  one  of  them  made  that  animal 
howl,  but  he  hung  grimly  to  the  tree. 

I  raised  my  gun  to  let  him  have  the  second 
barrel  when  the  sharp  crack  of  a  rifle-shot 
sounded  and  the  wildcat  fell  almost  at 
my    feet. 


I  turned  and  walking  towards  me  was  a  six- 
foot  athletic  specimen  of  a  man. 

* '  Excuse  me, ' '  he  remarked,  ' '  but  that  fellow 
has  been  bothering  my  sleep  for  some  time  and 
I  thought  I  ought  to  have  a  chance  at  him." 

I  could  see  in  a  second  he  was  n't  a  "  Cracker' ' 
or  a  Floridian,  either.  He  wore  a  corduroy 
hunting-suit,  demonstrating  a  tailor's  tape-line 


Florida  Fancies  53 

and  a  tailor's  tact.  Then  he  shook  hands  and 
introduced  himself  with  the  grace  and  ease  of 
a  man  of  the  world  accustomed  to  good  society. 

"Come  over  to  my  bungalow,"  he  said; 
"breakfast  is  about  ready,  and  as  a  New  Yorker 
you  are  doubly  welcome." 

What  is  there  in  this  wide  world  of  ours  that 
rubber-stamps  New  York  or  Chicago  upon  a 
man?  I  had  settled  it  in  my  mind  that  he  was 
from  the  metropolis  when  he  broke  out  with 
the  invitation. 

"What  in  the  world  are  you  doing  here?  "  I 
queried. 

"Oh,  it  's  a  long  story;  let  's  wait  till  after 
we  eat,"  he  remarked. 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  a  sort  of  a  clear- 
ing on  the  edge  of  a  little  lake  secreted  away  in 
the  woods.  It  was  truly  a  romantic  spot  and 
one  any  Bertha  Clay  girl  would  gush  over. 

In  among  the  stately  pines  on  the  edge  of 
the  lake  was  his  "bungalow."  It  was  a  two- 
room  cottage  built  of  pine  logs,  the  roof 
thatched  with  palms.  An  attempt  at  orna- 
mentation had  been  given  to  the  structure 
both  inside  and  out,  and  it  had  a  very  pictu- 
resque effect. 

There  was  a  small  hut  back  of  it,  and 
I  could  see  two  or  three  men  around  a 
big  gasoline  stove  seemingly  busy  preparing 


54  Florida  Fancies 

breakfast.  He  called  to  one  of  them  and  sent 
him  after  the  body  of  the  wildcat  and  to  another, 
who  was  evidently  his  valet,  to  bring  fresh 
water  and  towels.  The  room  we  entered  was 
filled  with  evidences  of  refinement  and  good 
taste.  Here  and  there  were  scattered  articles 
of  virtu  and  of  value,  and  on  the  walls  were  a 
few  very  good  water-colors  and  a  sprinkling  of 
etchings. 

Over  the  big  open  fireplace  was  a  deer's 
head  mounted  on  a  panel,  and  above  were  a 
pair  of  racing  sculls  tied  with  a  broad  blue 
ribbon,  "Yes,"  he  said,  answering  my  gaze, 
"I  was  in  Yale  in  '92." 

The  breakfast  was  served  by  the  valet  and  it 
was  as  neat  and  natty  a  meal  as  I  ever  sat  down 
to.  The  coffee  was  delicious,  the  omelette  was 
a  dream,  and  the  fresh  rolls  fit  for  a  king.  I 
registered  myself  there  for  a  week  at  "Dick's  " 
urgent  invitation,  and  we  got  to  be  very  good 
friends.  He  showed  me  a  creek  I  could  get  the 
boat  through,  and  we  tied  her  to  an  improvised 
dock  his  men  had  made  in  front  of  the  hut, 
which  he  had  named  "Wildcat  Cabin." 

It  was  the  end  of  the  week  before  he  grew 
communicative  as  to  his  hermitage,  miles  away 
from  all  sign  or  sound  of  man.  One  night  just 
after  supper  we  sat  out  on  the  bank  watching 
the  fish  as  they  jumped  out  of  the  water.     I 


Florida  Fancies  55 

was  discussing  a  creme  de  menthe  while  he  was 
sipping  coffee,  I  had  noticed  that  although 
he  could  mix  any  kind  of  drink  from  a  Man- 
hattan to  a"  Jim  Rickey,"  still  he  never  tasted 
the  products  of  his  skill. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  remarked  abruptly, 
"that  if  I  was  to  drink  that  green  stuff  it  would 
make  me  sick  as  a  dog?  " 

"Why,  what  's  the  trouble?  "  I  queried. 

"Why,  old  man," — for  he  had  grown  as 
familiar  as  that  in  the  few  days, — "I  '11  tell 
you,  and  that  's  just  what  brings  me  here. 

"You  know  after  I  left  college  I  entered  my 
father's  brokerage  firm  as  assistant  manager. 
Of  course,  I  had  had  my  fling  at  Yale,  but  not 
more  of  a  'throw  '  than  most  young  men,  and 
I  was  still  in  with  the  boys'  set  at  New  York. 
You  know  what  that  is.  It  's  a  case  of  two  or 
three  weeks  on  a  friend's  yacht  in  Summer  and 
a  week's  or  ten  days'  time  in  the  Adirondacks  in 
the  Fall. 

"Then  there  's  the  summer-hotel  trip,  the 
about-town  trips,  the  clubs,  and  the  stag 
parties.  I  don't  think  I  indulged  more  freely 
than  the  ordinary,  but  the  'governor,'  who  is 
one  of  the  old  school  prohibition  pushers,  gave 
me  a  very  large  case  of  conversation  many  a 
time.  But  then  he  always  made  up  for  it  the 
next  day  with  an  addition  to  my  allowance, 


56 


Florida  Fancies 


and  I  never  treasured  up  much  of  what  the 
dear  old  fellow  said. 

"One  night,  however, — it  's  just  six  months 
ago  to-night,  by  the  way, — I  came  home  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life  a  little  bit  'shaky.'  I  had 
been  to  a  supper  given  by  a  very  close  friend  of 
mine  who  was  going  to  be  married  the  next 
day.  He  belonged  to  my  college  society,  and 
was  in  the  Yale  crew  with  me.  Naturally,  we 
had  a  pretty  jolly  time  talking  over  old  scrapes 
and  college  wrinkles. 

"And,  as  luck  would  have  it, 
the 'governor'  had  had  a  migh- 
ty bad  day  in  Wall  Street,  and 
his  temper  was  hardly  sweeten- 
ed  by  a   two  or  three   hours' 
walk  over  the  carpet  while  wait- 
ing for  me.     Heavens,  when  he 
saw  my  condition  did  n't  he  rip 
me  up  the  back  though !     If  I 
had  been  the  lowest  of 
the  low  sewer  drunk- 
ards he  could  n't  have 
piled  it  on  thicker. 

'Now,'  he  said, 
in  conclusion,  'I  'm 
not  going  to  have  you 
around  New  York  in 
this  beastly  condition. 


Florida  Fancies  57 

Take  this  check,  fill  it  out  with  what  you  want 
for  a  year,  then  go  and  get  out  into  the  woods 
somewhere  away  from  everybody  and  be  a 
man  again.' 

"  You  could  have  blown  me  over  with  a  fan- 
wave  before,  but  this  rather  straightened  me 
and  I  tried  to  argue  the  point.  But  the  more 
I  tried  the  worse  I  was  off.  'No,'  he  finished. 
*  Do  what  I  say.  Fill  your  mind  with  good 
substantial  reading  like  Dickens  and  Thackeray. 
Get  some  real  instruction  into  your  poor  be- 
fuddled noddle.  Read  that  great  masterpiece, 
Lorna  Doo7ie,  and  above  all  imitate  and  emulate 
the  great  John  Ridd  and  the  heroes  of  the  old- 
time  writers.' 

"Well,"  continued  Dick,  "I  left  for  the 
West  the  next  day  without  again  seeing  the 
'governor  '  and  I  finally  drifted  to  Florida  and 
here.  Somehow  I  could  n't  get  those  last 
words  out  of  my  mind,  and  they  kept  running 
through  me  like  one  of  those  'ad  '  couplets  you 
see  in  an  elevated  train.  '  Emulate  and  imitate 
John  Ridd,  Dickens  and  Thackeray,  and  chase 
their  heroes  with  an  example.' 

"So  I  bought  every  copy  of  these  people's 
works  I  could  find  in  sight.  I  bought  them  in 
all  kinds  of  bindings  and  in  all  kinds  of  shapes. 
When  I  got  here  first  I  had  half  a  ton  of 
them.     But," — and  Dick  gazed  reflectively  out 


58 


Florida  Fancies 


over  the  lake, — "they're  all  feeding  the  fish 
down  there  now. 

"I  started  in  with  the  great  John  Ridd  in 
Lorna  Doone.  I  read  about  him  in  four  or  five 
kinds  of  bindings.  Then  I  started  in  to  emu- 
late him.  He  was  put  forth  as  a  notoriously 
sober  man,  and  I  noticed  that  his  favorite  drink 
was  old  ale.  Then  I  sent  to  town  for  a  cask 
of  it  and  hunted  through  the  book  to  see  what 
John's  limit  was. 

"Great  Golden  Gates  alive!     As  a  moderate 
drinker,  he  limited 
himself  to  half  a  gal- 
lon   before    breakfast 
and  about  a  gallon  for 
the  rest    of   the   day. 
What  in   Heaven's 
name   did    the  gover- 
nor   mean    by    asking 
me  to   imitate  such  a 
drunkard  as  that  for? 
But    I    shut    my 
teeth      and 
sailed    in. 
Now      I  'd 
never    been 
accustomed 
to    taking 
a  drink  be- 


Florida  Fancies  59 

fore  breakfast  and  that  half-gallon  business 
was  too  much  for  me.  It  spoiled  my  ap- 
petite for  all  day  and  I  got  thin,  restless,  and 
nervous. 

"After  a  week  I  gave  that  up  and  took  to 
Thackeray.  I  noticed  that  his  heroes  seemed 
to  favor  old  clarets  and  old  burgundies.  Thack- 
eray was,  if  you  remember,  a  stickler  for  the 
age  of  his  claret.  So  I  sent  to  New  York  and 
got  as  near  to  his  post-mark  as  I  could  and 
waded  in ;  but  there  again  I  was  dazed.  Half 
a  dozen  bottles  at  a  sitting  seemed  to  be  easy 
work  with  them,  and  the  rest  of  the  stuff 
they  drank  as  'chasers  '  I  suppose  would 
give  the  toughest  Blackwell's  Isle  'bum'  the 
tremens. 

."So  I  let  Thackeray  go  to  the  bottom  of  the 
pond  and  find  what  he  did  n't  seem  to  use  in 
his  books — water.  Then  I  waded  into  Dickens, 
but  it  was  worse  than  ever.  The  Lord  must 
have  given  those  'old  timers'  brass  stomachs, 
copper  rivetted  and  iron  shingled.  By  this 
time  I  was  disgusted  and  discouraged  with  the 
old  masters  altogether  and  ready  to  give  up. 
'There  must  be  something  the  matter,'  I  said 
to  myself.  'It  can't  be  possible  that  my 
stomach  is  weak.' 

"Finally,  one  day  I  struck  an  idea.  The 
trouble  was  that  I  did  n't  eat  the  same  food 


6o  Florida  Fancies 

they  did.  I  must  not  alone  drink  with  them, 
but  I  must  eat  also. 

"There  happpened  to  be  one  book  of  Thack- 
eray's left,  The  Four  Georges,  and  I  hunted 
through  for  a  sample  meal.  I  found  it  on  page 
216.     This  is  it : 

"  'When  Lord  Sparkish,  Tom  Neverout,  and 
Colonel  Alwit,  the  immortal  personages  of 
Swift's  polite  conversation,  came  to  breakfast 
with  my  Lady  Smart  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  my  Lord  Smart  was  absent  at  the 
levee.  His  Lordship  was  at  home  to  dinner  at 
three  o'clock  to  receive ;  and  we  may  sit  down 
to  this  meal  like  the  Barmecide  and  see  the 
fops  of  the  last  century  before  us.  Seven  of 
them  sat  down  to  dinner  and  were  joined  by  a 
country  baronet  who  told  them  they  kept  court 
hours.  These  persons  of  fashion  began  their 
dinner  with  a  sirloin  of  beef,  a  fish,  a  shoulder 
of  veal,  and  a  tongue.  My  Lady  Smart  carved 
the  sirloin,  my  Lady  Answerall  helped  the  fish, 
and  the  gallant  Colonel  cut  the  shoulder  of 
veal.  All  made  a  considerable  inroad  on  the 
sirloin  and  the  shoulder  of  veal  with  the  excep- 
tion of  Sir  John,  who  had  no  appetite,  having 
already  partaken  of  a  beefsteak  and  two  mugs 
of  ale,  besides  a  tankard  of  March  beer,  as  soon 
as  he  got  out  of  bed.  They  drank  claret, 
which   the   master  of   the   house  said  should 


Florida  Fancies 

always   be   drunk   after 
fish ;    and    my    Lord 
Smart  particularly  rec- 
ommended some  excel- 
lent   cider    to    my    Lord 
Sparkish,  which    occasioned 
some  brilliant  remarks  from  that 
nobleman.    When  the  host  called 
for  wine,  he  nodded  to  one 
other  of  his  guests  and  said,- 
"Tom  Neverout,  my  service 
to  you." 

.   .   .   " 'Wine  and  small 
beer   were    drunk   during 
second  course.     And  when 
Colonel    called    for   beer 
called  the  butler  Friend,  ai 
asked  whether  the  beer  was 
Various  jocular  remarks  pa 
the  gentlefolks  to  the  servants. 

"  'After  the  puddings,  sweet  and 
black,  the  fritters  and  soup,  came  the  third 
course,  6f  which  the  chief  dish  was  a  hot 
venison    pasty,  which   was    put    before 
Smart,  and  carved  by  that  nobleman.     Be 
sides  the  pasty  there  was  a  hare,  a  rabbit, 
some  pigeons,  partridges,  a  goose,  and  a 
ham.    Beer  and  wine  were  freely  imbibed 
during  this  course,  the    gentlemen  always 


62  Florida  Fancies 

pledging  somebody  with  every  glass  which 
they  drank;  and  by  this  time  the  conversation 
between  Tom  Neverout  and  Miss  Notable  had 
grown  so  brisk  and  lively  that  the  Derbyshire 
baronet  began  to  think  the  young  gentlewoman 
was  Tom's  sweetheart,  on  which  Miss  remarked 
that  she  loved  Tom  like  pie.  After  the  goose, 
some  gentlemen  took  a  dram  of  brandy,  "which 
was  very  good  and  wholesome,"  Sir  John  said. 
And  now  having  had  a  tolerably  substantial 
dinner,  honest  Lord  Smart  bade  the  butler 
bring  up  the  great  tankard  full  of  October  to 
Sir  John.  The  great  tankard  was  passed  from 
hand  to  hand  and  mouth  to  mouth,  but  when 
pressed  by  the  noble  host  upon  the  gallant 
Tom  Neverout,  he  said,  "No,  faith,  my  Lord, 
I  like  your  wine,  and  won't  put  a  damper  upon 
a  gentleman.  Your  honor's  claret  is  good 
enough  for  me."  And  so,  the  dinner  over,  the 
host  said,  "Hang  saving,  bring  us  up  ha'porth 
of  cheese." 

"  'The  cloth  was  now  taken  away  and  a  bottle 
of  burgundy  was  set  down,  of  which  £he  ladies 
were  invited  to  partake  before  they  went  to 
their  tea.  When  they  withdrew  the  gentlemen 
promised  to  join  them  in  an  hour.  Fresh  bot- 
tles were  brought,  the  "dead  men,"  meaning 
the  empty  bottles,  removed,  and  you  hear, 
"John,  bring  clean  glasses,"  my  Lord  Smart 


Florida  Fancies  63 

said,  on  which  the  gallant  Colonel  Alwit  said, 
"I  '11  keep  my  glass,  for  wine  is  the  best  liquor 
to  wash  glasses  in."  ' 

"Just  think,"  continued  Dick,  "those  are 
the  people  my  father  wanted  me  to  emulate. 
I  read  that  menu  over  again,  studied  it  front 
and  back,  did  about  seven  sums  in  arithmetic 
with  it,  and  decided  to  go  out  of  the  emulating 
business  and  save  what  was  left  of  my  constitu- 
tion. I  had  n't  written  a  line  home,  but  a  week 
ago  I  mustered  up  nerve  and  wrote  the  gov- 
ernor, explaining  matters  in  detail.  I  asked 
him  if  he  wanted  to  kill  me.  I  pointed  out 
that  it  was  somewhat  unfair  to  my  stomach  to 
try  and  test  it  that  way.  Then,  in  closing,  I 
sent  him  page  216  of  The  Four  Georges,  and 
asked  him  to  bring  some  friends  and  I  'd  get 
up  that  meal  for  him  if  he  wanted  it,  but  that  I 
would  draw  the  line,  myself,  as  I  was  rather 
particular." 

Just  as  Dick  finished,  the  valet,  who  had  been 
sent  to  Leesburg,  returned  with  a  dispatch. 
Dick  opened  it,  smiled,  and  without  a  word 
handed  it  to  me.  It  was  surely  laconic  enough. 
It  said : 

Richard  Travers, 

Leesburg,  Fla. 

Damn  your  dinner.     Come  home. 

R.  N.  Travers. 


64 


Florida  Fancies 


"I  don't  know,"  said  Dick,  as  we  turned  in 
for  the  night,  "but  what  after  all  a  course  of 
Thackeray  would  beat  all  the  Keeleys  on  top 
of  earth." 


CHAPTER   VIII 


I N ROLL  a  spool  from   the 
film  of  memory;  there  it 
is :  a  sea-green  sky,  flying, 
fluttering,    fleecy,   vapory 
clouds,  like  the  filtering  of 
a  fog.     Over  all  the  full  of 
a  moon,  rayless,  but  filling 
land  and  water,  sky   and 
clouds  with    its   radiance. 
In  that  memory's  nega- 
tive two  men  stand  on  the 
^^  shore  of  a  lake — a  lake  up- 
on whose  waters  for  miles 


65 


66  Florida  Fancies 

from  either  shore  floats  the  long-stemmed, 
broad-leaved  pond-lily,  the  open  water  seem- 
ingly but  a  narrow  strip,  but  for  miles  in 
width  it  is  clear  water.  Its  banks  are  bor- 
dered with  clumps  of  Florida  cypress  with 
here  and  there  a  long  stretch  of  palm  trees, 
their  tall  tops  reaching  moonwards,  as  still  as 
the '  *  eternal  silence  of  the  hills. ' '  Then,  amidst 
the  lilies  and  the  lettuce  were  little  brown, 
floating  islands  anchored  firmly  by  a  vegetable 
cable,  looking  for  all  the  world  like  the  arm- 
thick  rope  of  a  fishing-bank's  schooner.  Even 
the  big  yellow  buds  of  the  pond  flowers  had 
closed  their  petals  in  a  seemingly  eternal  sleep. 

Clear-proofed  in  the  picture  is  my  companion, 
but  how  different  from  my  boyhood's  dream  of 
a  trapper.  Short,  chunky,  with  a  long,  thick 
beard  reaching  to  his  waist,  and  dressed  in  a 
suit  of  patched  overalls  and  a  long  overcoat, 
he  shattered  all  my  youthful  ideals.  Then,  to 
climax  the  costume,  he  wore  a  broad-brimmed 
battered  old  straw  hat  and  a  pair  of  $1.87  Irish 
brogans. 

' '  Well,  Sam, ' '  I  said, ' '  I  guess  you  're  wrong ; 
there  '11  be  no  concert  to-night." 

"Time  enough,"  he  answered  grimly;  "it  's 
not  nine  yet." 

Silence  again,  then  from  across  the  lake  five 
miles  away  a  sound  like  the  mooing  of  a  calf 


Florida  Fancies  67 

broke  out.  Louder  and  louder  it  grew,  and 
then  it  died  away  amid  the  gray  moss  of  the 
cypress.  A  triumphant  chuckle  from  Sam,  and 
then  an  answering  bellow  almost  at  our  feet, 
sent  Florida  chills  chasing  up  and  down  my 
back.  It  seemed  so  weird  and  uncanny  that  it 
made  my  teeth  rattle. 

"That  's  the  bull  answering  that  cow  over 
there,"  whispered  Sam.     "Now  listen." 

Then  started  a  chorus  that  would  defy  de- 
scription and  beat  all  the  Wagner  bands  in  ex- 
istence. The  call  had  started  and  from  every 
little  island,  from  every  little  cove,  an  answer 
came.  Bellow  after  bellow  resounded,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  the  lake  was  full  of  alligators.  It 
was  an  unearthly  and  never-to-be-forgotten 
concert.  After  twenty  minutes  it  stopped  as 
suddenly  as  it  began  and  peace  and  the  moon 
reigned. 

Camp  and  camp  followers  had  all  been  shifted. 
To  a  lay  mind  like  mine  it  's  a  very  good  policy 
when  you  go  bird-hunting  to  take  a  bird-dog 
instead  of  a  deer  or  a  coon  canine.  Why,  then, 
is  n't  it  just  as  good  sense  when  you  go  alliga- 
tor-hunting to  take  an  alligator-man? 

Every  man  has  his  specialty,  just  the  same  as 
dogs,  and  there  *s  not  a  dog  "fouring,"  if  I 
may  use  the  term,  who  has  n't  a  specialty. 
Now  Collins,  the  former  guide,  was  the  best 


68 


Florida  Fancies 


deer-hunter  Florida  ever  saw.  But  put  him 
against  an  alligator  and  all  his  cunning  and 
sagacity  went  to  pot. 

With  Sam  Davis  water-hunting  was  his  light 
and  life.     Two  would  sum  up  all  the  deer  he 
ever  killed,  but  his  living  for 
years  had  been  made  on 
alligator  and  other  hides. 
As   for   land-hunting,    he 
disliked  it,  and  when 
the  camp   pan- 
try was  deplet- 
ed he  'd  rather 
row  miles  after 
ducks  than  walk 
three  hundred 
yards  for  quail. 
To  the  unin- 
itiated   it    may 
seem  that  alliga- 
tor-hunting   is 
rather    tame 
sport.     But   let 
me  tell  you  it  is 
n't.     Most  men 
who   know   the 
differencewould 
rather    face   a 
hundredwound- 


Florida  Fancies  69 

ed  deer  than  one  shot-tickled  ten-foot  'gator. 
Why?  Because  the  deer  will  invariably  run, 
and  Mr.  'Gator  is  mighty  liable  not  to.  And 
a  spice  of  danger  helps  the  sauce  of  any  sport. 

Well,  to  return  from  the  digression  and  the 
lake  front  to  the  camp.  Sam  made  a  mental 
map  of  those  "bellows  "  so  as  to  "place  them  " 
next  day,  and  bidding  Pete,  the  colored  cook, 
call  us  early,  we  turned  in. 

The  next  day  was  an  ideal  day  for  'gators. 
The  sun  shone  bright  and  there  was  just  enough 
wind  stirring  to  rustle  the  lilies  and  the  lettuce 
and  help  drown  the  noise  of  the  boat  as  it  was 
threaded  through  them.  A  little  light  sixteen- 
foot  flat-bottomed  skiff  was  our  boat — built  to 
a  point  at  both  ends,  and  not  over  three  feet 
wide  at  the  centre.  Thin  cypress  was  its  make- 
up, and  fifty  pounds  was  its  weight.  This  last 
item,  of  course,  was  the  most  essential,  as  it 
had  to  be  paddled  in  and  out  among  the  vege- 
tation and  the  water-passes  without  a  breath 
of  noise. 

For  two  hours  we  moved  through  devious 
watery  ways,  hugging  the  banks  as  closely  as 
possible,  without  seeing  anything  but  "signs." 
Then,  from  my  shooting  seat  in  front  I  turned 
to  Sam,  and  saw  his  eyes  glued  to  a  tussock  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  ahead.  No  word  or  motion 
outside  of  the  silent  sweep  of  the  paddle  came 


yo  Florida  Fancies 

from  him.  A  sudden  lifting  of  the  eyebrows, 
that  was  all. 

I  looked  and  looked  again,  but  could  see 
nothing,  while  onward  we  slowly  crawled. 
Then  the  waving  grasses  parted  a  little  on  the 
tussock,  and  the  black-knobbed  line  of  an  alli- 
gator's back  showed.  It  was  hard  to  tell 
whether  he  was  asleep  or  "sunning,"  as  the 
head  was  turned  from  us. 

Nearer  and  nearer  we  got,  until  at  sixty 
yards  the  gun  came  to  my  shoulder;  my  feet 
spread  to  cling  to  the  sides  of  the  boat  and 
steady  her.  I  ran  along  that  alligator's  "top 
line  note"  with  my  sight  and  held  it  back  of  the 
head.  A  turtle  turtled  with  a  noisy  flop  from 
the  bank.  Mr.  'Gator  moved  forward  and  I 
let  him  have  five  drams  and  three  quarters  of  a 
dozen  of  double-B  shot.  It  stunned  him  for  a 
second,  but  like  a  lightning  flash  he  was  in  the 
water,  and  my  second  barrel  had  missed  him 
clean  and  clear. 

And  so  it  went  on  all  that  day  with  only  a 
half-hour  interval  for  a  lay  off  in  the  pine 
woods  and  lunch.  But  with  no  better  success. 
Fate,  shooting,  or  some  hoodoo  was  against 
us.     We  returned  to  camp  empty-boated. 

For  two  days  more  we  did  that  self-same 
thing.  And  the  wonder  of  it  was  we  could  n't 
either  of  us  tell  where  the  fault  lay.     It  was  n't 


Florida  Fancies  71 

in  the  quantity  of  alligators  surely,  for  in  that 
time  we  had  square  fair  shots  at  no  less  than 
twenty-five  of  the  brutes.  It  was  n't  in  my 
shooting  entirely,  for  I  had  thrown  down  my 
gun  twice  in  the  last  two  days  and  for  half  a 
day  Sam  had  poured  and  pounded  shot  into 
them. 

The  third  night  I  had  fairly  made  up  my 
mind  to  quit,  but  the  little  English  blood  still 
left  in  me  fought  that  resolve.  We  both  lay 
gloomily  gazing  at  the  fire,  mentally  studying 
over  every  shot  and  the  situation.  We  felt 
sure  we  had  three  or  four  dead  alligators  in 
that  lake.  Two  of  them  we  had  rowed  up  to, 
thinking  to  slide  them  into  the  boat,  but  both 
of  them  had  life  enough  left  to  flop  off  into  the 
water  and  get  away.  Then,  if  they  were  very 
nearly  dead,  they  would  still  cling  to  the  bot- 
tom, and  it  would  be  three  or  four  days  before 
they  rose  to  the  surface,  and  their  skins  would 
then  be  practically  useless. 

If  you  want  to  get  an  alligator,  it  must  be  a 
clean,  cold  kill;  leave  him  enough  breath  to 
move  and  he  '11  beat  you  out.  He  may  recover 
in  five  minutes  and  if  you  don't  take  your  axe 
and  cut  his  spinal  bone  in  two  before  that  time, 
you  '11  have  trouble  on  your  hands.  I  have 
seen  with  my  own  eyes  an  alligator,  five  hours 
after  he  was  to  all  appearances  dead,  and  after 


72 


Florida  Fancies 


the  commercial  part  of  his  clothing 
had  been  removed,  break  a  man's  back 
with  one  blow  of  his  tail. 

Alligators,  if  they  have  attained  a 
length  of  nine  feet  or  over,  are  apt  to 
be  very  ugly  members  of  watery  so- 
ciety, if  wounded.  And  there  are 
many  instances  on  record  of  their  at- 
tacking boats  forty  and  even  fifty  feet 
long,  just  because  there  are  a  few 
men  on  board,  and  the  alligators  are 
shy  a  meal.  Old  alligator-hunters, 
men  who  have  been  in  the  business  for  years, 
rarely  if  ever  shoot  at  a  big  alligator.  They 
let  him  slide  for  two  reasons.  One  is  that 
it  is  dangerous  to  attack  them,  as  they  are 
hard  to  kill  and  when  wounded  are  liable  to 
make  a  wild  rush  for  the  shooter,  and  then 
there  's  trouble  ahead.  The  other  reason  is 
that  an  alligator's  skin  depreciates  in  commer- 
cial value  after  it  reaches  seven  feet  in  size. 

A  seven-foot  skin  is  worth  a  dollar  to  any 
trapper,  while  a  twelve-foot  'gator's  hide  brings 
only  thirty-five  or  forty  cents.  As  the  trapper 
has  to  pay  the  freight  and  as  it  takes  three  or 
four  times  as  long  to  bother  with  them,  the  ex- 
perienced Florida  alligator-farmer  is  generally 
rather  shy  on  them. 

And  so  we  lay  and  mused. 


Florida  Fancies 


n 


"Sam,"  I  said  finally,  "didn't  you  tell  me 
some  fairy  story  about  a  gang  of  trappers  com- 
ing down  this  way  somewhere  last  summer  and 
getting  over  two  hundred  skins  out  of  a  lake, 
cleaning  it  out? ' 

"Yes,"  he  remarked  moodily,  "but  this  ain't 
the  lake,  because  it  ain't  cleaned  out." 

Just  then,  as  if  to  emphasize  the  remark,  a 
low  moaning  sound  with  a  distinct  quavering 
note  of  pain  in  it  megaphoned  across  the  lake. 
"There,"  said  Sam,  "there  's  that  big  fellow 
near  the  cypress  that  you  put  a  charge  into  at 
twenty  yards." 

"Sam,"  I  said,  "I  '11  tell  you  just  what. 
Have  you  noticed  that  all  the  alligators  we  've 
seen  in  this  lake  have  been  big  ones?  This  is 
the  lake  that  'gang'  cleaned  up,  and  they  've 
left  us  the  top-notch  lot." 

And  so  we  decided  it  was,  and 
changed  ammunition  and  tactics.  I 
had  a  regular  elephant  rifle  with  me, 
a  big-bore  Sharps  40-50,  and  I 
cleaned  it  up.  The  first  alligator 
we  sighted  the  next  morning  was, 
as  we  made  it  a  hundred  yards  away, 
over  twelve  feet  long.  He  was 
"sunning,"  with  his  head  down  and 
only  the  knobby  ridge  of  his  back 
showing.    We  got  up  within  twenty 


74  Florida  Fancies 

yards  of  him  and  Sam  laid  down  his  paddle 
and  picked  up  his  gun.  It  was  a  hard  shot, 
as  I  had  to  guess  at  the  place,  but  I  let  go,  and 
Sam  followed  with  both  barrels.  For  a  second 
he  was  stunned,  then  with  a  lightning  jump  he 
was  in  the  water. 

"Look  out!"  Sam  yelled  as  he  seized  the 
paddle,  "there  he  comes."  And  sure  enough 
the  water  was  bubbling  like  a  boiling  spring  as 
he  rose  to  the  surface.  Sam,  meanwhile,  was 
backing  away  for  life,  while  I  stood  up  in  the 
boat,  ready  with  the  elephant  bore. 

The  'gator  looked  as  big  as  a  steam  yacht  to 
me,  but  not  half  so  pretty.  After  gauging 
the  situation,  he  made  a  vicious  rush.  Then  I 
seemed  to  freeze  to  granite.  I  knew  that  one 
blow  of  his  tail  would  smash  our  boat  to  splin- 
ters, and  once  in  the  water  one  of  us,  at  least, 
was  doomed. 

On  he  came,  lashing  the  water  to  a  soapy 
foam.  I  kept  my  gun  well  down  and  at  ten 
yards  I  let  go.  I  heard  the  crack  of  his  break- 
ing skull  as  the  bullet  went  straight  and  true 
between  the  eyes;  then  a  slight  shock  that 
tumbled  me  to  my  seat,  and  it  was  only  a  dead 
alligator,  and  he  lay  floating  feet  upwards  to 
the  smiling  sun. 

We  were  satisfied  that  day,  and  we  tied  a 
rope  to  him  and  towed  him  to  camp,  three 


Florida  Fancies 


75 


miles  away.  He  measured  twelve  and  a  half 
feet  long.  My  first  bullet  had  entered  his 
back,  and  even  at  that  distance  had  not  pene- 
trated but  a  few  inches.  Then  it  had  flattened 
out  like  a  piece  of  putty.  Sam's  buckshot  had 
simply  angered  him.  At  twenty  yards,  with 
five  drams  of  powder,  not  one  had  gone  through 
his  skin.  Slight  marks  were  there,  showing 
that  the  shots  had  been  true.     That  was  all. 

For  two  weeks  we  followed  up  this  campaign, 
and  at  the  end  of  that  time  we  had  thirty  skins, 
not  one  of  them  under  eight  feet.  In  that 
time  we  had  seen  all  the  alligator  life  possible. 
It  was  the  latter  part  of  February,  their  breed- 
ing season,  when  they  all  come  out  from  their 
winter  naps  and  face  the  world  again.  We  had 
seen  a  cow  alligator  fighting  to  the  last,  de- 
fending its  young  from  a  hungry  father  alli- 
gator; we  had  seen  and  watched  their  clumsy 
love-making;  and,  greatest  of  all,  we  had  been 
fascinated  for  hours  by  a  terrific  battle  between 
two  giant  specimens  for  the  possession  of  a  fair, 
but  I  'm  afraid  a  rather  frail,  female,  as,  while 
the  two  were  fighting,  another  carried  her  off. 
We  had  no  more  adventures  until  the  last  tragic 
one.     But  that  's  food  for  another  chapter. 


T/iJRTr    C^nTtS 


HIRTY  CENTS,  that  was  his  name ; 
at  least,  that  was  the  best  I  could 
do  for  him,  poor  fellow.  He  was  a 
little  Seminole  Indian  boy  who  had 
strolled  into  our  camp  way  down 
among  the  everglades,  where  I  had 
been  hunting  deer.  The  boy  was 
short  and  slim,  with  wavy  black  hair  and,  for  a 
wonder,  a  clean  face.  Young  as  he  was,  and 
although  he  did  n't  own  a  gun,  he  was  the  best 
bird-shot  I  ever  saw.  Pete,  the  cook,  could  n't 
fire  a  gun  without  shutting  his  eyes,  so  I  asked 
the  boy  to  come  along  with  us  for  the  hunt 
and  keep  us  in  birds  and  rabbits. 

The  Indian  camp  wasn't  far  away;  a  jug  of 
"jig  water  "   gained  the  consent  of  the  chief, 
and  "Thirty  Cents"    completed  the   quartet 
necessary  for  our  alligator  hunt. 
76 


Florida  Fancies  ^^ 

And  he  proved  to  be  a  valuable  acquisition. 
Trained  from  his  babyhood  to  woodland, 
tramped  since  his  childhood  from  place  to 
place,  taught  to  hunt  before  he  was  ten,  he 
knew  the  book  of  nature  and  the  map  of 
Southern  Florida  from  A  to  Z.  I  asked  him 
his  name,  but  it  was  too  strong  for  me.  It 
seemed  to  commence  at  T  and  then  speculate 
among  the  alphabet  until  it  got  all  the  letters, 
and  then  double  up  and  climax  on  S.  So,  as  a 
compromise,  I  called  him  ' ' Thirty  Cents. "  He 
smiled,  and  "it  went."  The  boy  became  quite 
attached  to  me  before  the  last  day  of  our  alliga- 
tor hunt.  I  told  Sam  the  next  morning  to  take 
the  launch,  as  the  Indians  were  then  camped 
twenty  miles  away,  and  find  out  whether  I 
could  take  the  boy  North  for  the  summer. 
"Meanwhile,"  I  said,  "I  'm  going  over  to  get 
that  big  'gator,  with  the  help  of  the  boy." 

Said  Sam :  "He's  over  fourteen  foot  long; 
he  's  wounded,  and  he  's  a  bad  one." 

How  I  wish  now  I  had  been  wise  and  heeded 
his  advice ! 

My  heart  was  set  on  that  'gator.  It  was  one 
I  had  shot  at  three  times.  Twice  I  had  missed 
him,  but  in  the  first  day's  shoot  I  knew  I  had 
nailed  him  with  buckshot.  I  had  had  a  first- 
class  chance  to  "size  him  up"  and  I  knew 
that  fourteen  feet,  at  least,  was  his  measure. 


78  Florida  Fancies 


:;gji-.«»aatogX3CTV«— ::« ii..;:a«iaat«w» 


-*»»Vri«feS: 


He  was  the  king-pin 
of  all  his  tribe  in  the 
lake.       So,    full    of 

hope,  we  set  out  that  afternoon,  disdaining  to^ 
bother  with  any  other,  but  rowing  straight  to 
his  island  home.  I  knew  that  if  he  was  n't 
there,  he  would  come  up  not  over  fifty  or  a  hun- 
dred yards  from  there,  as  he  was  wounded  and 
must  have  air.  At  any  other  time  than  the  breed- 
ing season  alligators  are  very  migratory.  At 
night  they  are  liable  to  be  twenty-five  miles  away 
from  their  haunts  of  the  morning,  and  it  's  not 
unusual  for  them  to  travel  all  summer  this  way. 
So  for  two  solid  hours  we  lay  hidden  like  two 
Moseses  in  the  bulrushes,  but  no  'gator.  Then, 
looking  back  a  mile  away  across  the  lake,  we 
noticed  a  long  black  streak  coming  toward  us. 
Nearer  and  nearer  it  came.  At  three  hundred 
yards  I  could  see  he  wasn't  my  meat,  as  he 
was  only  about  ten  feet  long,  so  I  shook  my 
head  at  the  Indian. 


Florida  Fancies  79 

He  nodded  and  whispered  low:  "Him  she 
'gator,  coming  to  meet  big  one." 

That  alligator  came  within  twenty  feet  of 
our  boat.  She  saw  us  plainly,  stopped  for  a 
second,  and  her  big  eyes  rolled  over  us  and  our 
outfit.  But  we  sat  immovable,  and  she  moved 
on  and  climbed  the  tussock  not  over  forty  feet 
away,  and,  after  looking  us  over  again,  actually 
went  to  sleep. 

Another  half  hour  I  was  cramped  and  stiff 
and  sore,  and  had  just  made  up  my  mind  to 
move,  when  a  little  bubble  came  spouting  up 
to  the  top  of  the  lake,  not  far  from  the  boat. 
The  boy's  eyes  glistened,  and  he  pointed. 
Then  a  rush  of  bubbles,  and  both  of  our  guns 
were  sighted  at  the  spot.  Just  a  broad  brown 
snout  —  and  then  two  shots  rang  out  simul- 
taneously. 

There  was  no  whispering  then.  "Get  out !  " 
I  yelled;  "we  've  missed  him."  The  Indian 
grasped  the  situation  in  a  second.  The  bow  of 
the  canoe  was  on  the  tussock,  and  if  he  came 
for  us  we  had  no  sea  room. 

We  had  no  more  than  backed  into  the  lake 
than,  with  an  onward  rush,  he  was  at  us.  The 
Indian's  eyes  stuck  out  like  glass  ones  in  a 
stuffed  figure,  but  he  deftly  turned  the  boat 
aside,  and  the  'gator  just  brushed  us.  I  fired, 
but  missed  him  again.      Then  ensued  one  of 


8o  Florida  Fancies 

the  strangest  sights  I  ever  saw.  Down  he 
went,  with  a  whirl  of  foam,  and  was  up  in  a 
minute,  forty  feet  away.  He  made  another 
rush,  but  in  a  direct  line  from  us.  This  time 
we  both  fired,  and  down  he  went  again.  He 
stayed  down  fully  five  minutes.  Up  he  came, 
with  a  swirl  and  a  dash,  jumping  straight  in  the 
air,  seven  feet  of  him,  or  half  his  body,  clearly 
out  of  water.  Crack  again  went  the  guns,  but 
he  was  so  like  lightning  that  there  was  hardly 
hope  of  hitting  him  in  a  vital  spot.  He  whirled 
and  whizzed  about  in  a  frenzy  of  rage,  but 
instead  of  rushing  towards  us  again,  made  for 
the  island,  tearing  it  half  in  two. 

"Him  blind,"  yelled  the  Indian,  as  we  fired 
and  loaded  again.  The  first  charge  of  buck- 
shot had  evidently  put  out  both  his  eyes. 
This  time  he  stayed  down  fifteen  minutes,  the 
water  for  a  twenty-foot  circle  over  him  covered 
with  bubbles,  showing  that  he  was  hard  hit  and 
breathing  rag-time.  "Thirty  Cents"  evidently 
got  tired  of  waiting,  for  he  paddled  to  the  spot, 
and  reaching  over  the  side  of  the  boat,  pushed 
down  an  oar  and  prodded  him  with  it. 

In  a  second  the  scene  was  changed.  With  a 
cannon-ball  rush  the  'gator  had  come  to  the 
surface  directly  at  the  side  of  the  boat,  and 
with  one  slap  had  broken  it  to  pieces,  and  we 
were  flopping  in  the  water. 


Florida  Fancies  8i 

I  remember  how  my  life  seemed  to  biograph 
itself  before  me.  Then  I  struck  out  for  shore, 
the  Indian  a  few  yards  ahead  swimming  for  life 
itself.  I  saw  him  turn  his  head  to  see  that  I 
was  safe,  and  then  he  yelled  something,  but  I 
could  n't  catch  it.  I  heard  the  alligator  breath- 
ing hard  close  behind  and  then  I  thought  my 
time  had  come. 

Then  all  the  stories  Sam  had  told  of  how  the 
beasts  all  preferred  black  meat  to  white,  came 
to  me.  I  gruesomely  wondered  in  that  short 
moment  whether  it  was  the  same  with  red,  and 
whether  he  would  pass  me  by.  We  had  gained 
a  little  on  the  alligator  by  this  time,  as  being 
blind  he  had  to  be  guided  by  the  noise.  But 
now  he  had  straightened  out  and  as  he  was 
headed  directly  for  me  and  as  the  shore  was 
five  hundred  yards  away,  I  knew  there  was  no 
hope.  A  sudden  thought  struck  me.  I 
stopped  my  noisy  swimming,  lay  over  on  my 
back  and  floated,  moving  enough  to  get  me  out 
of  line. 

It  was  none  too  quick.  The  alligator  rushed 
on,  almost  brushing  me  as  he  passed.  I  heard 
a  yell  of  agony,  and  "Thirty  Cents"  had 
crossed  the  ford  to  the  happy  hunting-grounds 
in  the  forest  of  the  great  beyond. 

I  swam  to  one  of  the  tussocks,  and  by  lying 
flat  it  held  me  up.     Still  I  was  n't  safe.     The 


82  Florida  Fancies 

alligator  might  come  back,  but  I  judged  if  let 
alone  he  'd  had  enough.  For  an  hour  I  lay 
there;  the  sun  set  and  darkness  came  on.  I 
was  wet  through  and  shivering  with  the  cold, 
for  be  it  known  all  nights  in  Florida  are  chilly. 
But  the  welcome  chug!  chug!  of  the  Lela  Bell 
soon  came  across  the  waters,  and  half  an  hour 
later  I  was  gazing  sullenly  and  moodily  into 
the  camp-fire. 

Pete,  the  cook,  sobbed  like  a  woman  in  hys- 
terics, but  Sam  took  it  more  quietly.  An  un- 
expressed purpose  was  in  both  our  minds. 
"Yes,"  he  said,  voicing  my  own  thoughts, 
"we  '11  have  to  build  a  raft,  cover  it  with  rushes, 
lay  near,  and  catch  that  cuss." 

That  night  we  built  the  raft  and  the  next 
morning  found  us  close  to  the  place  again.  It 
was  a  clean  live  shot  I  made  this  time,  and 
signalling  for  Pete  with  the  launch  we  towed 
him  back  upon  the  raft. 

Pete's  joy  was  as  hysterical  as  his  sorrow. 
He  danced  around  the  carcass,  sticking  knives 
and  fire-brands  into  it,  yelling  at  the  same  time 
all  the  cuss  words  in  his  vocabulary.  In  the 
afternoon  we  skinned  him  and  counted  six  bul- 
lets that  had  passed  through  the  skin  and  flat- 
tened just  inside.  He  measured  fourteen  feet 
ten  inches  from  nose  to  tip  of  tail  and  must 
have  weighed  nearly  eight  hundred  pounds. 


Florida  Fancies  83 

After  supper,  while  Sam  and  I  were  packing 
a  few  things  preparatory  to  a  run  to  the  Indian 
camp  the  next  day,  to  convey  the  news  and 
explain  matters,  colored  Pete  came  rushing 
towards  us  brandishing  a  knife  in  one  hand 
and  holding  part  of  a  coat  in  the  other. 

"Say,  Massa,"  he  said,  "ain't  you  all  'uns 
goin'  to  bury  him?  " 

"Bury  that  alligator,  you  fool,"  I  said;  "no, 
let  the  buzzards  have  him." 

"No,  no,  boss,"  he  said.  "Bury  Marse 
Thirty  Cents.  I  dun  cut  dat  'gator's  belly  out 
and  he  's  in  there.     Here  's  his  coat." 

Sam  and  I  looked  at  each  other  and  both 
shuddered.  It  was  more  than  we  had  bargained 
for,  and  we  told  Pete  to  go  ahead  while  we  got 
a  coffin  ready.  Two  big  cracker  boxes  length- 
ened out  made  his  last  bed.  We  tore  the  tent 
to  pieces  to  cover  it  and  pad  it.  Then  with 
burnt  wood  we  made  some  paint  and  gave  it 
the  conventional  color. 

By  this  time  Pete  had  got  through  and 
brought  us  all  that  was  left  of  the  boy's  shat- 
tered, bruised,  and  broken  body.  We  placed 
him  reverently  in  the  box,  and  at  midnight  we 
buried  him. 

Darkness  was  over  all.  By  the  light  of 
pitch-pine  torches,  we  placed  him  in  a  grave 
under  a  cypress  tree. 


84  Florida  Fancies 

It  was  two  days  afterward  that  we  came  back 
from  the  Indian  camp.  Chief ' '  Spotted  Face, ' ' 
as  I  had  nicknamed  him,  grunted  a  little,  but  a 
large-sized  jug  of  "jig  water  "  and  a  few  bottles 
of  the  same  consistency  seemed  to  satisfy 
his  scruples,  and  all  the  comment  he  made 
was:  "  Boy  big  fool  to  monkey  with  big 
'gator." 

Meanwhile  Pete  had  not  been  idle.  With 
all  a  negro's  love  of  the  spectacular  he  had, 
with  the  help  of  a  hundred  buzzards,  cleaned 
all  the  meat  from  that  alligator's  carcass  and, 
bracing  it  up  with  a  stout  sapling,  had  placed 
it  as  a  monument  at  the  head  of  the  grave  of 
poor  "Thirty  Cents." 

Fastened  to  the  bones  with  a  wire  was  a  big 
placard  reading: 


HERE'S  THIRTY  CENTS 


HE   WAS   A   GOOD    INDIAN 


This  is  the  alligator's  bones  that  killed  him. 


The  grey  moss  of  the  cypress  reaches  to  the 
ground,  the  whispering  wind  of  a  Florida  day 


PETE'S  SIX-FOOTER 


Florida  Fancies 


85 


sways  it  gently  to  and  fro,  brushing  ever  and 
anon  that  ghastly  shaft,  murmuring  a  requiem 
as  plaintive  and  melancholy  as  ever  was  crooned 
o'er  buried  man. 

And  so  we  left  him  as  the  day  broke. 


CHAPTER  X 


In  the  Piney  Woods, 

Gum  Swamp,  Florida. 

THE  dawn  of  a  new  day  is  just  breaking,  the 
thick  mist  from  the  river  at  our  feet  rises 
like  a  cloud,  and  the  drip,  drip,  drip  of  it  from 
the  pine  trees  overhead  forenotices  us  of  an- 
other sunny,  summery  "  Juney  "  day. 

The  red  tint  of  the  east  grows  stronger  and 
the  glare  of  the  camp-fire  grows  pale.  You 
can  have  your  ten  inches  of  snow,  but  give  me 
a  Florida  sunrise  in  midwinter.  A  few  palms 
and  a  deerskin  for  covering  were  all  that  com- 
prised a  bed  last  night,  and  I  could  n't  have  slept 
more  luxuriously  if  I  'd  been  the  Astor  tramp. 
86 


Florida  Fancies 


87 


Then  there  's  a  growl  from  the  coterie  of  dogs 
as  the  guide  stretches  himself  preparatory  to 
the  work  of  another  day.  With  an  exception 
as  to  color,  "Lige"  Collins  is  the  beau  idial 
of  one  of  J.  Fenimore  Cooper's  hunters  and 
heroes.  "Lige,"  however,  is  a  very  black 
brunette,  as  every  inch  of  his  six-foot  form  is 
colored.  He  has  the  reputation,  and  I  guess 
he  's  earned  it,  too,  of  having  shot  more  deer 
than  any  other  man  in  Florida. 

It  was  n't,  how- 
ever, for  that  rep- 
u  t  a  t  i  o  n  that  I 
"cottoned  "  to 
him.  It  was  to  try 
a  new  and  novel 
way  of  hunting 
the  kings  and 
queens  of  the 
Florida  woods. 
And  that  is  to 
slow  trail"  a 
deer.  And  though 
as  a  novelty  it  may 
be  all  right,  still 
as  a  steady  diet  I 
don't  think  I  rate 
it  high  myself,  and 
after    you   've 


88 


Florida  Fancies 


walked  forty  miles  a 
day  through  woods 
and  swamps,  you  '11 
be  of  my  opinion,  I 
think. 

Hitherto  I  've 
hunted  deer  in  every 
kind  of  way  except 
this ' '  slow  trail ' '  pro- 
cess, and  I  am  willing 
to  say  after  a  three- 
days'  trial  any  other 
"old  way  "  will  suit 
me  after  this.  The 
"chief  cook  and  bottle-washer"  in  a  hunt  of 
this  kind  is  the  dog,  and  it  is  a  safe  thing  to 
assert  that  there  's  not  another  dog  like  Mary 
Jane  in  all  Florida,  and  it  's  doubtful  if  there  's 
another  "slow  trail  "  dog  in  Florida  anyway. 

Mary  Jane,  or  "Sleepy  Jane,"  as  I  call 
her,  is  the  most  forlorn  specimen  of  a  pup 
you  ever  saw.  She  's  got  a  semi-paresis,  half 
"dopey"  look  that  gives  you  an  idea  she  's 
too  tired  to  live,  but  does  n't  want  to  take  the 
trouble  to  die.  As  to  color,  she  's  a  sort  of 
cross  between  a  liver-pad  and  a  bilious  pill. 
Then,  for  a  change,  though  she  's  as  skinny  as 
a  skeleton,  still  all  her  bones  don't  show,  as 
half  her  ribs  have  been  punched  in  by  a  deer, 


Florida  Fancies  89 

and  there  's  a  lot  of  innocuous  desuetude  on 
one  side  of  her  body.  Then  she  got  mixed  up 
with  another  deer  who  deprived  her  of  part  of 
her  interior  department  and  the  string  stitches 
the  guide  sewed  her  up  with  show  for  a  foot 
along  the  other  side  of  her  body.  Take  her 
all  in  all  and  with  one  broken  leg,  her  chances 
for  a  prize  in  a  beauty  show  would  n't  be  high. 

But  that  dog  would  fool  you.  She  certainly 
gave  me  a  higher  regard  for  "doganity, "  if  I 
may  coin  the  word.  As  every  sportsman 
knows,  the  usual  way  to  hunt  deer  with  dogs 
is  for  them  to  "open  out  "  and  yell  their  lungs 
out  the  minute  you  strike  a  trail,  and  then  you 
follow  as  close  as  possible  on  horseback. 

But  Jane's  work  was  different.  At  seven 
o'clock  the  first  morning  we  struck  a  deer  trail. 
Jane  did  n't  even  wink  an  eyelash.  She  just 
stood  there  waiting  for  us  to  come  up,  looking 
for  all  the  world  as  if  she  were  going  to  sleep. 
Then  for  five  mortal  hours  we  followed  that 
"pup."  Over  hill  and  dale,  through  wood  and 
swamp  we  chased,  crossing,  turning,  "back 
tracking  "  at  the  whim  of  what  I  made  up  my 
mind  was  a  cur.  At  twelve  o'clock,  with 
every  bone  in  my  body  aching,  with  a  brown 
colored  thirst,  and  a  gun  that  seemed  to  weigh 
a  hundred  pounds,  it  struck  me  that  I  was  the 
victim  of  some  alleged  joke.     Mary  Jane,  who 


90  Florida  Fancies 

had  kept  just  twenty  yards  ahead  of  us  all  the 
time,  waited  as  if  for  us  to  come  up.  There 
was  a  little  bit  of  a  wag  to  her  tail  and  she 
did  n't  move  on  as  we  got  up  to  her. 

"There's  the  deer,"  whispered    the  guide. 

Then  he  walked  over  toward  a  clump  of 
palmettos  and  for  a  second  my  breath  stopped 
.short,  for  a  big  buck  jumped  out  and  was 
twenty  yards  away  in  two  jumps.  Then  I 
caught  myself  and  at  forty  yards  I  stopped  his 
capers  with  a  load  of  double-O  buckshot. 

The  crack  of  the  gun,  and  what  a  transfor- 
mation!  "Jack,"  a  big  black  hound  that  had 
been  kept  back  all  the  time,  made  a  leap  for- 
ward and  Mary  Jane  was  with  him.  There 
was  a  combined  howl  and  away  they  went. 
What  was  my  consternation  to  see  that  deer 
jump  away  with  a  sort  of  a  forked  lightning 
gait.  At  a  hundred  yards  I  let  him  have  an- 
other barrel,  but  was  wide  of  the  mark. 

By  this  time  the  dogs  had  settled  down  to 
business  and  not  a  howl  was  heard.  In  a  min- 
ute they  were  out  of  sight  and  hearing.  For 
two  miles  we  tracked  that  deer  by  the  blood 
on  the  palmettos,  but  it  was  hours  afterwards 
before  we  finally  heard  the  dogs,  who  had  him 
cornered  in  the  swamp.  For  a  Florida  deer,  he 
was  a  big  one,  weighing  about  one  hundred  and 
eighty  pounds. 


Florida  Fancies  91 

That  was  the  longest  trail  we  had,  the  rest 
of  them  being  from  two  to  three  hours.  But 
"Sleepy  Jane  "  never  made  a  miss.  Once  she 
started  on  the  scent,  she  never  left  it  till  she 
struck  the  deer.  It  was  a  pretty  good  camp, 
as  we  brought  away  six  deer.  Of  quail  and 
duck  we  shot  only  enough  to  keep  the  camp, 
though  there  was  another  camping  party  who 
boasted  of  a  hundred  and  sixty  quail  in  one 
day.  As  they  could  n't  eat  them,  and  as  they 
would  spoil  before  they  could  sell  them,  I  can 
hardly  see  the  sense  of  it. 


These  Florida  fancies  are  fleeting  forms  of 
the  fading  camp-fire  now.  Florida  has  started 
a  new  chapter  in  her  history,  and  to  many  its 
future  looks  dark  and  drear. 

"The  Freeze"  is  now  the  book-mark  for 
every  Floridian.  Everything  dates  from  or 
before  that.  In  one  night  chaos  had  come  and 
King  Cold  reigned.  Fifty  million  dollars'  worth 
of  oranges  is  safely  estimated  as  the  price  of 
that  one  "cold  snap."  Men  who  were  worth 
$100,000.00  that  night  were  automobiled  down 
hill  to  the  $.00  cross-roads  the  next  day. 

Then  the  banks  that  had  been  cheerfully 
loaning  money  on  forthcoming  oranges  and 
placing    mortgages    on    flowery    and    fruitful 


92  Florida  Fancies 

estates  commenced  to  feel  the  strain  and  it  re- 
minded one  of  a  rapid-fire  gun  as  they  burst  all 
over  the  State. 

Yet,  fighting  for  their  lives  and  their  homes, 
with  hearts  full  of  hope,  they  commenced  again, 
but  fate  or  the  Gods  seemed  to  forbid. 

Frost  after  frost  followed  year  after  year,  and 
either  put  back  or  destroyed  the  trees.  Go 
with  me,  then,  back  to  these  scenes  of  former 
days.  In  every  little  village  and  hamlet  we 
passed  in  our  journey ings  of  these  years  agone, 
wreck  and  ruin  reign.  Mouldering  and  crumb- 
ling to  the  sand  beneath,  are  its  houses  and  its 
stores;  doorless,  windowless,  and  empty  are 
its  churches;  untended,  unfenced,  and  weed- 
grown  are  its  graveyards. 

What  the  outcome  will  be,  't  is  hard  to  pre- 
dict. I  venture  to  say  that  one  half  the  houses 
in  Florida's  small  villages  are  empty  and  de- 
serted and  fast  falling  to  pieces.  Many  and 
many  a  $20,000  plantation  has  been  sold  for 
the  bare  price  of  railroad  tickets  to  a  Northern 
State.  Incalculable  suffering  was  the  price  of 
that  freeze,  and  let  us  hope  that  the  Great  One 
above  has  given  strength  and  courage  to  the 
many  thousands  who  in  new  homes  and  new 
places  have  the  struggle  of  life  to  begin  again. 


"JACK"  STANLEY 

A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  CUBAN  WAR 


93 


"JACK"  STANLEY 

A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  CUBAN  WAR 


J 


ACK"  STANLEY  was  my  boyhood 
chum.  How  we  came  to  assimilate,  I 
know  not,  for  we  lived  as  far  apart  as  the 
limits  of  Hartford  would  let  us.  And  as  for 
the  social  scale,  there,  also,  was  the  same  in- 
equality. "Jack"  was  leader  of  the  Asylum 
Hill  coterie,  the  boys  of  the  bon-ton  district, 
while  I  was  boss  of  the  North  End  "gang."  I 
rather  think,  though,  that  our  friendship  dated 
from  a  certain  baseball  game  when  "Jack  "  and 
I,  as  leaders  of  our  respective  nines,  got  into  a 
95 


96 


"Jack"  Stanley 


dispute.  I  believe  "Jack"  licked 
me  about  three  times  in  very  close 
procession,  but  I  had  a  lot  of  bull- 
headed  English  blood  in  me  and  I 
would  n't  admit  the  fact,  and 
"Jack  "  got  tired. 

Then  we  shook  hands,  though 
I  had  a  broken  jaw  and  as 
many    black    eyes     as     I 
could  carry. 

I  think  we  were  not 
over  fifteen  years  old, 
but  from  that  day  we 
were  inseparable.  We 
entered  High  School  to- 
gether. Let  's  see,  that 
must  have  been  about  '79 
or  '80.  We  were  in  the  foot- 
ball team,  and  "Jack"  played 
third  base,  and  I  caught,  on  the 
baseball  nine.  The  next  year,  I 
remember,  the  Chinese  government  entered  a 
job  lot  of  princes  as  scholars.  They  formed 
a  baseball  nine  called  the  "Orientals,"  and 
"Jack"  was  elected  captain  and  I  manager  of 
the  team. 

We  had  a  lot  of  fun  with  them,  too.  They 
were  the  most  excitable  devils  I  ever  saw,  and 
kept  "Jack  "  and  me  in  hot  water  all  that  sum- 


"Jack"  Stanley  97 

mer.  Between  times  they  played  cards,  and 
they  would  n't  be  satisfied  until  they  had  mas- 
tered the  delicacies  of  the  great  American  game 
of  poker. 

As  they  had  pocket-money  to  refrigerate, 
neither  Mr.  Stanley  nor  myself  objected,  and 
memory  rather  tells  me  that  as  teachers  we 
were  a  "howling"  success.  At  least,  I  think 
that  was  our  impression. 

At  that  time  "Jack  "  was  a  big,  curly-headed 
six-footer,  and  the  very  beau  ideal  of  an  ath- 
lete. After  three  years  our  ways  drifted  apart. 
"Jack"  had  his  life  cut  out  for  him.  After 
High  School  he  was  booked  for  Yale.  Then 
he  was  to  make  the  tour  of  the  world  before  he 
settled  down  to  life  work. 

With  me  it  was  different.  I  had  to  cut  out 
my  own  way.  Life  was  yet  before  me  and  I 
must  make  what  I  could  out  of  it  without  help 
and  without  influence.  "Jack"  and  I  would 
meet,  though,  every  chance  we  got.  He, 
naturally,  was  a  big  favorite  everywhere.  Big- 
hearted,  big-bodied,  he  towered  above  them  all 
and  won  his  way  at  college  without  seeming  to 
lift  a  finger.  He  was  stroke  oar  in  the  crew, 
and  I  '11  never  forget  the  hugging  he  gave  me 
after  the  race  that  year,  when  Yale  won  by  five 
lengths. 

Then  came  the  crash  and  the  sudden  change 


98  "Jack"  Stanley 

in  his  fortunes.  Stanley,  Sr.,  committed  sui- 
cide; "Jack's"  mother  followed  to  eternal  rest 
the  next  day,  and  he  was  left  to  face  the  world 
alone,  without  a  dollar.  Ah,  worse  than  that, 
for  his  father  had  left  behind  him,  plundered, 
an  estate  he  had  charge  of. 

A  few  days  after  the  double  funeral  we  met 
in  the  old  homestead  on  the  hill  for  the  last 
time.  "Jack,"  to  me,  was  a  semi-Deity,  but 
he  always  turned  to  his  "chum"  for  advice, 
and  it  seemed  only  natural  in  this,  his  triple 
trouble.  He  was  very  quiet  as  we  talked  mat- 
ters over.  There  were  no  tears,  only  a  set, 
drawn  look  about  the  mouth  and  a  sort  of  a 
stunned  stare  about  the  eyes. 

"Old  man,  we  've  been  through  many  tough 
times  together,  but  this  is  worst  of  all.  I  want 
you  to  do  me  a  favor,"  he  said,  speaking 
quickly,  as  if  afraid  of  himself.  "Grace — I 
dare  n't  see  her.  She  'd  make  a  baby  of  me, 
and  it 's  better  not. 

"Tell  her,"  he  continued,  "that  I  release 
her.  Tell  her  that  if  she  does  n't  hear  from 
me  in  three  years  to  give  up  all  thought  of 
'Jack.'  I  leave  to-night  on  the  midnight  for 
the  West." 

Argument  and  entreaty  were  alike  useless. 
He  left  on  the  express,  and  the  next  afternoon 
I  called  at  Grace  Grabert's  house.     I  can't  de- 


"Jack"  Stanley  99 

scribe  her  to  you ;  I  never  could  describe  a 
woman  in  cold  type,  nor  cold  words  either,  but 
to  me  she  was  the  handsomest  girl  in  all  the 
world.  She  always  had  been,  but  "Jack's" 
image  had  made  her  sacred  even  in  thought.  I 
softened  my  message  as  best  I  could,  but  it 
was  a  broken-hearted  woman  I  left  that  day, 
so  long  ago. 


FOR  a  year  I  had  chap- 
ters of  life  from  "Jack" 
by  mail.     He  did  n't  say  much 
about  himself,  but  I  could  tell 
by  the  tone  that   he   was  n't 
climbing   very   fast.     Then  he 
shifted,  and  it  had  been  three 
years  since  I  had  heard  a  word 
from  him  or  of  him.    I  was  "on 
the  road  "  then,  and  one  day  in 
Fort    Wayne,    Ind.,    bothered 
about  the  non-arrival  of  some    |,|' 
sami  ' 
the 
freight  house. 

"  Out  of  the  way  there,  sir !  " 

I  knew  the  voice  in  a  second.  It  was 
"Jack's."  And  he  was  the  one-dollar-a-day 
motive  power  for  a  truck.     I  had  grown  big 


iples,  I  mingled  myself  with    m 
freight   handlers  in  the     '' ' 


"Jack"  Stanley  loi 

and  stout  in  the  years  agone,  and  he  did  n't 
know  me  at  first.  "I  'd  like  to  punch  your 
face  for  you,"  I  yelled  at  him.  He  dropped 
the  truck,  rushed  up  and  gave  me  a  grip  like 
a  squeezing  trip-hammer.  Then  he  looked 
down  at  the  fallen  truck,  glanced  over  his 
rough  clothes,  and  turned  white  at  the  con- 
trast from  former  days.  ' '  I  could  n't  get  any- 
thing else  to  do,  old  man,"  he  remarked.  "It 
was  this  or  starve. 

I  made  him  quit  the  job  then  and  there.  I 
thrust  fifty  dollars  into  his  hand.  "Now, 
'Jack,'  "  I  said,  "you  've  lost  your  nerve. 
Get  around  town,  push  yourself  into  some  new 
clothes,  and  meet  me  at  the  hotel  in  two  hours. 
Then  we  '11  talk  over  old  times  and  I  *11  fix 
things  some  way. 

Luck  was  with  me.  I  had  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction to  a  prominent  citizen,  who  proved  to 
be  the  superintendent  of  the  very  road  "Jack  " 
was  working  for,  and  as  the  ofifice  of  assistant 
superintendent  was  vacant,  "Jack  "  got  it  that 
night.  I  had  to  do  some  tall  hustling  by  wire, 
but  Colonel  Stevenson,  who  was  manager  of 
the  Housatonic  Railroad,  helped  me  out  with 
a  wired  fabrication  which  never  hurt  anybody, 
and  "Jack  "  was  fixed. 

Six  months  afterward  the  superintendent 
and  "Jack"  went  to  Mexico  to  build  a  big 


I02  "Jack"  Stanley 

railroad.  I  had  a  hearty  letter  a  few  months 
later  and  I  knew  then  that  the  tide  was  coming 
his  way. 

"Jack  "  was  never  much  of  a  correspondent. 
One  night,  several  years  later,  I  was  sitting  in 
the  office  wondering  what  had  become  of  him, 
when  a  boy  handed  me  this  despatch : 

Hartford,  Conn.,  June  i6,  1890. 
You  said  if  I  ever  needed  a  friend,  to  call  on 
you.     I  want  you  now.     Will  you  come  to  see  me 
to-morrow  afternoon  ?  Grace. 

What  a  flood  of  silver  memories  the  name 
recalled !  What  a  wave  of  feeling  washed  over 
me!  "Jack  "  had  sworn  me  to  secrecy,  and  I 
had  not  even  seen  Grace  since  that  parting,  so 
many  years  ago 

The  colored  girl  that  answered  the  bell  the 
next  afternoon  said  that  her  "missis"  would 
see  me  in  her  boudoir.  How  well  I  remem- 
bered that  little  sitting-room !  It  seemed  long 
ago — that  day  "Jack"  and  I  were  admitted 
there  as  Miss  Grabert  was  convalescing  after  a 
long  illness.  Nothing  was  changed ;  even  the 
sofa  she  had  lain  on,  looking  like  a  fairy,  was 
still  there. 

Yes,  she  was  changed.  I  noticed  it  as  she 
crossed   the  room  to  greet  me.     Handsomer 


*'Jack"  Stanley  103 

than  ever,  some  would  say,  I  suppose.  But 
to  me  she  could  n't  be. 

"You  were  'Jack's  '  chum,"  she  said. 

' '  '  Jack  's  '  chum  !  "     "  *  Jack's  '  chum  ! ' ' 

The  words  seemed  to  fill  the  room  like  a  sad 
refrain.  "Jack's"  chum?  I  choked  down  a 
surging  sob  in  my  throat  as  I  looked.  And  I 
wondered  if  there  would  have  been  one  chance 
in  all  the  world  for  me  if  I  had  n't  been 
"  'Jack's  '  chum  !  "  Then  she  turned  abruptly, 
and,  with  a  suspicious  moisture  in  her  eyes, 
walked  to  the  window. 

Out  across  the  green  meadows  the  summer 
wind  gently  stirred  the  sheaves  of  corn ;  bor- 
dered by  grassy  banks,  flowed  the  little  stream 
where  "Jack"  and  I  had  fished  so  often. 
Farther  on  in  the  distance,  yet  clear  and  dis- 
tinct, arose  the  blue  ridge  of  hills,  the  scene  of 
many  a  hunting-day's  sport.  I  walked  to  her 
side,  and  as  we  gazed  the  gray  mist  of  many 
years  seemed  to  part  and  the  memory  of  many 
a  happy  day  came  back,  pictured  in  the  sun- 
light. 

"I  want  you  to  read  this,"  she  said.  It 
was  a  letter  from  "Jack,"  dated  a  week  before 
from  the  City  of  Mexico : 

City  of  Mexico,  June  9,  '90. 
Friend  Grace  : 

Is  there  hope    for   me  ?      At   last   I   can    come 


I04  "Jack"  Stanley 

to  you  with  a  heart  of  hope,  with  a  father's  name 
cleared,  with  a  conscientious  feeling  that  I  can 
give  you  your  proper  position  in  the  world.  I  am 
independent  now  and  am  on  my  way  to  fortune 
ahead.  In  all  these  years  have  you  forgotten  me  ? 
Say  but  one  word  and  I  come  to  you  ;  years  and 
years  I  have  been  working  and  longing  for  this 
time.  What  is  my  fate  ?  Not  for  one  day  have  I 
forgotten  you  in  all  these  years.     Shall  I  come  ? 

John  Stanley. 

I  looked  at  her  inquiringly,  but  she  avoided 
me  and  I  could  see  that  there  were  tears.  ' '  I 
have  written  him,"  she  said,  "not  to  come. 
I  *m  to  be  married  to-morrow ! 

"You  were  'Jack's'  best  friend,"  she  con- 
tinued. "  He  will  think  my  letter  so  cruel.  I 
want  you  to  soften  the  blow  and  give  him  this 
for  me."  It  was  a  handsome  gold  locket  with 
her  picture  and  a  lock  of  hair  in  it.  "Tell 
him,"  she  said,  "my  word  is  plighted.  It  's 
too  late  now!  " 

I  was  going  south,  anyway,  in  a  week,  and  I 
took  a  run  over  to  Mexico. 

But  "Jack"  had  disappeared  and  no  one 
knew  his  destination. 


^^imftjimi^  ^mHjiym 


THE     CUBAN     WAR 

THE  months  and  years  rolled  on  apace  and 
still  no  sign  or  word  from  "Jack."  But 
he  could  n't  lose  me  for  I  was  destined  to 
come  upon  him  in  another  unexpected  place. 
I  ran  over  to  Havana  at  the  time  the  Cubans 
were  having  their  lone-handed  fight  with  Spain, 
before  "Uncle  Sam  "  "mixed  in." 

And  before  I  had  been  there  an  hour  I  was 
arrested  by  proxy. 

Let  me  digress  right  here  and  give  you  a 
little  advice.  If  at  any  time  the  cold  necessity 
of  an  arrest  confronts  you,  always  have  it  done 
by  proxy.  It  is  the  only  really  genteel  way  to 
have  it  done.  There  's  no  trouble  at  all  in  it 
for  you.  Everything  goes  along  quietly  and 
the  other  fellow  has  all  the  hard  work.  You 
105 


io6  "Jack"  Stanley 

see,  if  you  go  to  the  bother  of  getting  arrested 
yourself,  it''s  likely  to  be  serious. 

With  me  it  happened  thusly :  I  had  room 
thirty-nine  on  the  Olivette.  I  also  had  a  friend, 
S.  D.  Stradley,  of  653  Broadway,  New  York, 
who  had  room  forty-one — the  next  one  to  mine. 
According  to  Spanish  reports,  two  villains  of 
the  deepest  dye  occupied  these  rooms.  I  was 
slated  in  the  ofificial  papers,  in  regular  rogues'- 
gallery  style,  this  way : 

Weight,  150. 

Age,  36. 

Height,  5  ft.  10  in. 

Hair,  brown. 

Eyes,  gray. 

Mustaches,  heavy. 

Feet,  large. 

Nose,  prominent. 

Profession,  journalist. 

This  was  a  very  fair  description  of  myself, 
and  when  I  looked  it  over  I  had  to  acknowledge 
it.  But  it  happened  that  J.  S.  F'arnum,  of 
Macon,  Ga.,  another  passenger,  answered  to 
the  same  description,  according  to  Spanish 
ideas.  The  difference  was  that  he  owned  a 
brewery  instead  of  being  a  journalist,  that  he 
weighed  a  hundred  pounds  more  than  I  did, 
that  his  eyes  were  brown,  and  a  few  other 
things.     Be  that  as  it  may,  the  police  boarded 


"Jack"  Stanley  107 

the  Olivette  as  usual,  and  the  passports  were 
taken  up  to  be  sent  to  our  hotels. 

An  hour  later  the  hotel  clerk  handed  me  a 
passport,  and  looking  it  over  I  found  that  it 
was  Mr.  Farnum's.  I  explained  the  mistake, 
but  did  n't  think  anything  else  of  it,  as  the 
clerk  said  undoubtedly  Mr.  Farnum  had  mine 
and  that  he  would  send  over  to  the  Hotel 
Ingleterra,  where  Mr.  Farnum  was  stopping, 
and  have  the  passports  exchanged.  Then  I 
took  a  carriage  and  went  out  into  the  country 
to  spend  the  day. 

When  I  jumped  out  of  the  carriage  again  at 
night  in  front  of  the  hotel,  I  thought  everybody 
had  gone  crazy.  There  was  a  mingling  of 
Spanish  exclamations,  of  French  swear  words, 
and  of  English  slang  that  was  indescribable, 
and  out  of  it  I  gleaned  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Farnum  had  been  arrested  by  the  police  in  my 
stead,  as  a  dynamiter,  a  leader  of  insurgents, 
and  everythng  that  was  real  bad.  He  had 
a  passport  in  my  name,  and  all  the  protesta- 
tions in  the  world  were  useless,  so  he  had  to 
be  locked  up. 

Everybody  advised  me  to  fly  at  once.  But 
as  that  was  impossible  without  wings,  I  faced 
the  music.  The  mayor  happened  to  be  a  friend 
of  mine,  and  I  started  in  to  see  what  was  the 
trouble.     The  inmate  of  room  thirty-nine,  who 


io8  "Jack"  Stanley 

was  myself,  had,  it  seems,  a  mysterious-looking 
blanket  bag  in  his  stateroom,  loaded  with  dyna- 
mite, guns,  pistols,  and  other  deadly  things. 

As  all  I  brought  with  me  was  a  dress  suit 
case  and  as  that  was  filled  with  soiled  shirts 
mostly,  I  knew  the  bag  could  n't  be  mine. 
With  the  help  of  some  poor  Spanish  and  a  few 
frantic  gestures,  I  found  that  a  mistake  had 
been  made ;  that  the  bag  had  come  on  the 
Olivette  a  week  before,  and  that  the  man,  who 
was  a  journalist  and  in  a  way  answered  to  my 
description,  had  gone  into  the  country.  It  was 
supposed  that  I  was  the  man,  and  as  Farnum, 
who  was  arrested  for  me,  happened  to  have  in 
his  pocket  a  pistol  which  had  seven  chambers 
and,  therefore,  was  a  match  for  the  one  in  the 
bag,  I  was  roped  in  by  proxy. 

They  would  n't  let  me  look  into  the  bag, 
but  it  's  my  belief  that  there  was  nothing  very 
"dynamity  "  in  it,  for  it  belonged  to  Richard 
Harding  Davis,  the  author.  He  was  in  Cuba 
with  Frederic  Remington,  the  noted  artist,  and 
was  the  villain  who  occupied  room  thirty-nine. 
After  a  day's  stop  in  Havana  he  had  gone  into 
the  country,  but  when  Richard  got  back  to 
Havana  I  hope  he  had  trouble  on  his  hands 
right  away. 

As  if  to  make  amends,  the  officials  invited 
me  to  a  banquet  to  be  given  to  General  Campos 


'•Jack"  Stanley  109 

that  evening.  While  his  poor  boy-soldiers 
were  at  the  front  chasing  the  elusive  Gomez, 
Campos  took  life  easy  at  his  city  palace  and  at 
the  banquet  table. 

Perhaps  I  say  this  because  I  never  thought 
much  of  Campos  as  a  general,  anyway.  Cam- 
pos is  regarded  in  Spain  as  the  greatest  general 
that  country  ever  produced.  Where  he  gets 
his  medals,  I  can't  perceive.  When  he  con- 
sented to  sail  for  Cuba  and  take  charge  of  the 
war,  all  Spain  breathed  easier  and  seemed  to 
feel  as  if  that  ended  the  revolution.  The 
Spaniards  must  be  an  easily  deluded  lot  of 
people.  I  have  carefully  looked  up  the  ex- 
Governor-General's  history  and  I  can't  find 
anything  to  pin  their  faith  on.  History  does 
not  tell  us  of  one  decisive  battle  he  ever 
won. 

"Oh,"  you  exclaim,  "was  n't  the  crowning 
glory  of  his  life  the  conquering  of  the  Cubans 
in  the  ten-years'  war?  "  Perhaps  it  was,  but 
it  was  mighty  small  glory,  it  strikes  me.  In 
1868  a  few  hundred  Cubans  and  negroes  started 
a  revolution.  The  war  continued  until  1878, 
with  eight  years  of  active  fighting  out  of  the 
ten.  The  rebellion  gained  strength  until  the 
insurgents  had  an  army  of  50,000  in  the  field. 
Then  Campos  ended  the  rebellion. 

How? 


no  "Jack"  Stanley 

Simply  by  a  compromise!  He  granted  the 
insurgents  about  all  they  asked  for — freedom 
for  the  slaves,  pardon  for  all  rebels,  restoration 
of  all  confiscated  estates  and  representation  for 
the  Cubans  by  her  own  deputies  in  the  Cortes 
at  Madrid. 

A  great  victory,  was  n't  it? 

And  at  what  a  cost !  During  the  contest  the 
Spanish  losses  aggregated  8000  officers  and 
200,000  privates,  in  battle  and  hospital  and 
from  the  effects  of  climate.  By  adding  to  these 
figures  some  15,000  troops  left  in  Cuba  after 
the  capitulation  and  34,000  Cubans  under  the 
command  of  Marshal  Campos  at  the  time  of 
that  capitulation  (according  to  his  personal 
statement),  it  will  be  seen  that  the  force  that 
Spain  gradually  pitched  against  the  insurgents 
aggregated  257,000  men,  beside  50,000  volun- 
teers organized  on  the  island.  The  number  of 
Cubans  killed  in  battle  and  otherwise  is  esti- 
mated at  from  40,000  to  50,000. 

And  the  money  cost  to  Spain  was  $700,- 
000,000. 

Truly  a  great  victory ! 

All  these  thoughts  ran  through  my  mind  that 
banquet  night,  as  Campos  reeled  off  his  flowery 
sentences.  And  I  made  up  that  same  mind  to 
get  in  one  or  two  days  on  the  other  side  of  the 
house. 


"Jack"  Stanley  in 

Maximo  Gomez,  the  rebel  leader,  has  my 
admiration.  He  was  one  of  the  generals  who 
gave  Campos  such  a  "song  and  dance  "  in  the 
ten-years'  tinkering. 

Gomez,  I  knew,  was  the  idol  of  his  troops. 
There  was  no  separate  tent  for  him.  He  slept 
with  his  soldiers  on  the  hillsides.  No  extra 
fare  reached  his  table.  If  his  soldiers  suffered 
he  suffered,  also,  and  when  in  battle  he  was  at 
the  head  and  front,  leading  his  men. 

So  I  secured  a  letter  to  him  and,  with  the 
help  of  a  Hotel  Roma  man-chambermaid,  sewed 
it  into  my  coat, — and  just  as  easily  wore  the 
wrong  coat  the  next  day.  I  knew  just  where 
the  rebels  were,  because  I  had  a  friend  who  was 
posted,  and  the  afternoon  found  me  about  five 
miles  beyond  Marianna.  I  was  halted  by  an 
insurgent  scout  a  mile  from  camp  and  con- 
ducted to  headquarters.  Gomez  and  his  staff 
were  there,  mounted,  with,  I  should  judge,  a 
force  of  about  six  hundred  cavalry.  I  realized 
then  that  I  had  left  the  letter,  and  for  a  minute 
the  situation  was  ticklish.  I  explained  as  best 
I  could,  but  I  did  n't  blame  Gomez  for  sniffing 
and  retorting:  "That  may  be  all  right,  seflor, 
but  who  will  vouch  for  you?  " 

"I  will,  with  my  life,  general!  " 

It  was  an  aide-de-camp  dressed  in  the  uni- 
form of  a  general  who  had  turned  just  then  and 


112  "Jack"  Stanley 

discovered  to  me  "Jack"  Stanley!  •  I  did  n't 
need  any  better  voucher,  and  in  a  moment  we 
were  all  friends.  We  did  n't  have  much  time 
to  talk  then.  "Jack,"  or  the  General,  I  should 
say,  told  me  that  they  were  awaiting  a  column 
of  Spaniards  who  were  coming  to  reinforce  the 
guard  at  Guanajay.  Gomez  had  sent  his  main 
body  on  to  sack  that  town,  and  then  to  retreat 
to  the  sea  and  cover  the  landing  of  an  expected 
vessel  with  arms  and  ammunition. 

It  was  growing  dusk  when  the  scouts  ran  in 
and  there  was  a  hurried  mount,  a  rush  of 
cavalry,  and  we  were  away  like  the  wind  for 
the  column  of  Spanish  infantry  half  a  mile 
away.  What  a  wild,  weird  rush  it  was !  Never 
shall  I  forget  that  scene.  The  boys  of  Spain, 
for  they  were  nothing  else,  held  their  guns 
firmly  like  brave  soldiers,  and  at  thirty  yards  a 
volley  was  fired  that  sent  many  of  our  men  to 
their  Cuban  reservations  in  the  other  world. 

But  we  were  on  them,  and  a  wild  onslaught 
it  was.  The  Cubans,  the  white-haired  head  of 
Gomez  at  the  front,  fought  like  demons  thirsty 
for  blood,  and  though  the  enemy  outnumbered 
us  two  to  one,  they  turned  and  fled  in  con- 
fusion. No  living  power  could  have  withstood 
that  shock. 

I  don't  know  what  in  "great  Scott  "  got  into 
my  Cuban  pony,  but  the  smell  of  war  seemed 


"Jack"  Stanley  113 

to  suit  him,  and  I  was  in  among  the  staff  with 
their  trained  cavalry  horses. 

Suddenly  I  heard  the  order  to  retreat  given 
in  Gomez's  short,  sharp-voiced  tones,  and  as  I 
turned  I  could  see  the  reason.  A  couple  of 
columns  of  reinforcements  were  coming  down 
the  hill  at  double-quick  time,  and  the  fleeing 
comrades  were  returning.  I  looked  around  for 
"Jack,"  but  could  n't  see  him.  I  heard  the 
neigh  of  his  horse  and,  looking  back,  saw  it  was 
riderless  and  motionless,  but  neighing  piteously. 

Despite  the  yells  of  my  comrades,  I  turned 
back,  and  through  the  gathering  gloom  could 
just  see  Jack  with  one  hand  on  the  stirrup, 
trying  vainly  to  crawl  up  into  the  saddle.  His 
faithful  jet-black  companion  seemed  to  realize 
the  misery  of  the  situation.  All  this  I  took  in, 
in  a  second.  Then  I  jumped  down  and,  with 
a  strength  I  never  thought  I  possessed,  pushed 
"Jack"  in  front  of  the  saddle  and  leaped  in 
myself. 

Not  a  moment  too  soon,  for  with  a  wild  yell 
the  Spaniards  were  on  us.  But  the  black 
seemed  to  know  by  instinct  what  was  needed 
and  he  flew  like  a  Kansas  cyclone,  my  own 
horse  following.  A  few  stray  shots,  a  hole 
through  my  hat,  and  we  were  out  of  reach. 

For  a  mile  we  kept  on  this  way.  Then  I 
halted.     "Jack  "  had  fainted  and  blood  from 


114  ♦•Jack"  Stanley 

a  bullet  wound  in  his  side  soaked  through 
his  uniform.  I  did  n't  dare  stop  any  longer, 
and  for  miles  we  kept  on.  Then,  feeling  safe 
from  pursuit,  I  guided  the  horses  down  under 
a  rocky  boulder  near  the  seashore. 

By  this  time  "Jack"  had  revived,  and,  dark- 
ness having  set  in,  I  stripped  him  and,  tearing 
his  shirt,  bound  up  the  wound  as  best  I  could. 

"It's  no  use,  old  man,"  he  said.  "Guess 
1  'm  done  for  this  time."  It  looked  so,  but  I 
lied  with  the  best  face  I  could,  and  by-and-by 
he  fell  into  a  stupored  sleep  which  lasted  until 
morning  dawned. 

What  a  long  dreary  night  it  was !  Overhead 
the  clouds  hung  dark  and  thick.  The  monoto- 
nous dash  of  the  waves  sounded  like  a  requiem 
over  our  buried  hopes.  Now  and  then,  I  heard 
a  faint  sound  as  of  some  one  walking  near.  I 
held  my  breath,  because  I  knew  it  meant  death 
for  both,  to  be  caught. 

I  did  n't  dare  leave  him.  Towards  morning 
he  moved  uneasily,  as  if  in  pain;  then  at  the 
first  gray  streak  of  dawn  he  awoke.  One  could 
easily  see  it  was  his  last  day.  The  ashy  pallor 
of  death  had  already  stamped  its  seal  upon  his 
face. 

"What  of  Grace? " 

Then  I  told  him :  Of  her  marriage,  of  the 
birth  of  a  boy,  how  she  had  named  him — John 


"Jack"  Stanley  115 

— and  it  seemed  to  give  new  life  as  I  said  it. 
Then  I  told  him  of  our  last  interview.  He 
asked  eagerly  after  the  locket,  and  it  pleased 
him  that  it  was  as  near  to  him  as  Havana.  By 
a  last  effort  of  will  he  had  seemed  to  hold  him- 
self together,  but  when  it  was  finished,  a  child 
could  see  he  was  going  fast. 

"Harry,"  he  said,  "it  was  my  last  battle. 
I  'm  going  now.  Tell  Grace  I  loved  her  to  the 
last,  and  bury,  b . " 

A  last  gasp — the  head  fell  heavy  on  my  arm, 
and  all  was  over.  The  sentence  was  unfinished, 
but  I  knew  that  if  it  was  in  my  earthly  power 
the  locket  would  be  buried  with  him. 

That  was  his  last  thought. 

Afar  off  from  over  the  waters  came  the  faint 
sound  of  a  shot.  It  was  the  sunrise  gun  from 
Morro  Castle's  cannon. 

Away  across  the  red-sunned  waters  of  the 
sea,  one  could  faintly  see  the  blood-and-gold 
flag  of  Spain  climbing  to  the  staff-head. 

The  sound  of  the  sea  seemed  stilled  in  that 
silence.  The  end  of  the  tide  of  life  had  come 
and  with  it  the  turn  of  the  tide  of  the  sea. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE   BURIAL 

WHAT  a  gruesome,  and  yet  grotesque, 
burial!  I  often  wonder  if,  in  all  the 
centuries  and  ages  of  time,  man  was  ever  be- 
fore buried  like  that.  The  scene  is  yet  fresh 
before  me,  and  will  be  till  the  last  thread  of 
life  is  cut. 

I  found  the  horses  a  mile  away.  Then  I 
commenced  to  plan.  I  could  n't  leave ' '  Jack's" 
body  to  the  buzzards  and,  as  the  country  was 
covered  with  strolling  Spanish  soldiers,  it  was 
death  to  be  caught  with  it.  My  luck — which 
has  ever  been  proverbial — was  still  with  me, 
and  I  ran  into  one  of  those  country  Cuban 
homesteads.  Four  poles,  the  sides  covered 
with  mud,  by  courtesy  called  plaster,  and  a 
thatched  roof  made  the  house. 

Three  generations  lived  and  slept  in  it.  The 
grandfather  and  grandmother,  hoary  and  yel- 
low-parchmented  with  age,  then  the  next  two 
generations  down  to  a  crying  babe  in  the 
mother's  arms.  Not  to  mention  the  litter  of 
little  pigs  and  the  family  supply  of  chickens, 
ii6 


"Jack"  Stanley 


117 


which  also  occupied  the  same  apartment.  There 
was  only  one  room,  with  the  bare  ground  for  a 
floor,  and  the  chickens  and  pigs  were  just  as 
much  at  home  as  the  regularly  con- 
stituted family.  'WiX^^ 


As  it  happened,   they  were   old    f\S| 


friends  of  mine.  I  did  n't  recognize 
them  at  first,  but  as  soon  as  I  saw  on 
the  wall  one  of  my  amateur  photo- 
graphs of  Cuban  life,  framed  with  fresh 
flowers,  I  remembered.  A  year  be- 
fore, with  some  friends  I  had  "toured  " 
through  this  part  and  had  taken  several  views 
of  the  hut  and  the  combined  "family,"  pigs 
and  all. 

What  a  hearty  greeting  it  was !  The  Lord 
forgive  me  if  I  worked  on  those  people's  sym- 
pathies, but  it  was  that  or  nothing.     The  head 


ii8  "Jack"  Stanley 

of  the  second  generation  got  out  his  cart  and 
"Jack's"  poor  lifeless  corpse,  covered  with 
sugar-cane,  was  conveyed  to  the  hut.  When 
I  tried  to  tell  them  what  I  wanted  it  seemed 
as  if  the  last  tie  that  bound  me  to  earth  was 
broken.  I  knew  that  they  were  all  risking 
their  lives,  what  little  home  they  had, — and  it 
was  just  as  much  to  them  as  the  Vanderbilt 
marble  palace  is  to  its  owners — that  if  they 
were  caught  it  was  the  end  of  all  to  them. 

But  when  I  saw  how  willingly  they  helped 
me  in  all  my  plans  it  brought  back  new  life  and 
new  belief  in  my  heart.  The  only  thing  to  do 
was  to  bury  "Jack  "  under  the  hut.  It  was  n't 
safe  to  dig  a  grave  outside,  for  the  Spanish 
headquarters  were  only  a  mile  away.  So  I  left 
them  to  their  melancholy  task  and  started  for 
Havana.  What  I  wanted  was  an  English 
prayer-book  and  the  locket.  I  had  neglected 
to  get  from  General  Campos  passes  through 
the  lines,  but  by  the  help  of  a  tailor's  bill  with 
a  signature  on  the  end  and  of  a  poker  face,  I 
got  through.  Then,  at  Havana,  I  got  from 
General  Campos  passes  back. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  at  night  before  I  returned 
to  the  hut.  A  six-foot  grave  had  been  dug 
and  "Jack's  "  body,  covered  with  flowers  from 
the  field,  lay  within  it.  I  had  secured  an  Eng- 
lish prayer-book,  and  at  midnight  I  read  the 


"Jack"  Stanley 


119 


service  for  the  dead.  The  picture  of  that  burial 
seems  sacrilegious,  but  when  I  think  of  the 
brave,  strong,  earnest  hearts  around  that  grave, 
who  risked  their  lives  to  give  my  only  friend  a 


burial,  an  emotion  of  sanctification  is  ever  as- 
sociated with  the  memory  of  that  thatched 
hut. 

Two  mothers  with  babes  in  their  arms,  a 
horde  of  small  children,  and  the  grandparents, 
now  nearing  the  end  of  a  century  of  life, 
gathered  round. 

The  roosters  with  their  ill-timed  crowing,  the 
pigs  with  their  curious  but  gruesome  grunts, 
were  there.     The  light  was  dim  and  poor,  but 


I20 


"Jack"  Stanley 


through  my  tears  I  struggled,  and  all  that  was 
mortal  of  John  Stanley  was  earthed  over  with 
the  clay  of  Cuban  soil.  There  was  no  winding- 
sheet  or  shroud,  but  on  top  of  the  wild  flowers 
I  placed  the  black  satin  lining  of  my  overcoat, 
which  had  been  fastened  to  my  saddle.  It  was 
the  best  I  could  do,  and  no  man  can  do  more. 
So  he  sleeps.  Away  off  in  that  sunny  clime, 
far  from  home  and  friends,  but  with  one  heart 
ever  turning,  ever  thinking  of  the  hands  that 
clasp  a  golden  locket,  Grace  Grabert's  last  gift. 


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